Lecture 28: Cancer 1 Flashcards
Which type of cancer is the most deadly?
Lung
If the indecency of breast cancer is the same as that of lung cancer, why is the survival rate different?
You can remove a tumor from the breast, but you typically cannot remove from the lung
What are the 2 most common causes of death?
Cancer and heart attacks
What age group is primarily affected by cancer?
45-65
Deaths in those <40 are from accidents, >65 is heart failure
Why is cancer considered a disease of aging?
We accumulate mutations with age that are necessary for cancer to develop
________ is a disease in which an individual mutant clone of cells begin by prospering at the expense of its neighbor cells. Descendents of these clones can destroy the whole cell society in your body
Cancer
What 2 types of signals are cancer cells able to ignore in order to become self-sustaining?
Anti-growth signals
Apoptotic signals
What type of signals to cancer cells release themselves to become self-sustaining?
Autocrine growth factor signals
What controls cell growth and what produces these?
Growth factors - produced by other cells to stimulate target cells to divide (for healing or growth)
Cells do not divide unless told to do so!
What is one important biological distinction between cancer cells and normal cells in terms of growth factor?
Cancer cells require little growth factors
Normal cells have strong requirement!
Thus, cancer cells become independent of stimulation that is normally required by cells to proliferate (decontrolled proliferation)
What are the 2 heritable properties of cancer cells?
- Reproduce despite normal restraints on cell division and growth
- Invade areas normally reserved for other cells
How does cancer eventually kill?
As a tumor grows and spreads, it squeezes or destroys blood vessels and nerves until an organ can no longer perform its functions – death results
An abnormal cell that grows (increases in mass) and proliferates out of control will give rise to a tumor or ___________ ___________
Neoplastic growth
Differentiate between benign and malignant tumors
Benign tumors are neoplastic cells that do not become invasive, and the growth may be surgically removed as a cure
Malignant tumors have the ability to invade surrounding tissues
True or false: a benign tumor is considered cancerous
False
What class of cancer is from epithelial cells?
Carcinoma
What class of cancer is from connective tissue and muscle tissue?
Sarcoma
What class of cancer is from white blood cells and their precursors?
Leukemias and Lymphomas
What class of cancer is most common?
Carcinomas
Benign tumors are also known as ____________, which are benign epithelial tumors with glandular organization
Adenoma
Malignant tumors are also known as ____________
Adenocarcinomas
Cancers have names reflecting tissue origin.
What type of cancer originates in a keratinocyte stem cell in skin?
Basal cell carcinoma
Cancers have names reflecting tissue origin.
What type of cancer originates in pigment cells in skin?
Melanoma
Differentiate between basal cell carcinoma and melanoma in terms of metastasis
Basal-cell carcinoma rarely metastasizes while malignant melanoma metastasizes widely
What term describes the invasiveness of cancer - meaning that it can break loose, enter into blood or lymph, travel to new areas, and form secondary tumors
Metastasis
Tumor development involves multiple mutational events which confer a proliferative advantage. All tumors come from a __________ ___________
Single ancestor
Describe tumor progression in 3 basic steps
- Benign growth
- Invasive cancer
- Metastasis
Tumor development, like that which occurs in colon cancer, begins how?
With a mutation in APC gene, which is a tumor suppressor -> leads to formation of polyps