Ready To Study: The Cancer Patient Part 1 [I of II] Flashcards
There are four phases in the cell cycle. Name the 4 stages?
First growth phase G1
Synthesis phase S
Second growth phase G2
Mitotic phase M
Study Tip: This is why some anti-neoplastic medications are cell cycle specific which means that they work at a certain stage in the cell cycle.
It all begins when the sperm meets the egg; boy meets girl; 1+1=1 in this case; we have 1 germ cell from the man, 1 germ cell from the woman and when they join up it becomes 1 cell that is now capable of becoming a human being and that one cell is called a _______; from the moment that those 2 join up or conception occurs, cellular division happens and 1 cell becomes 2, then 4, then 8, 16, 32 and so on up to 100 trillion cells.
zygote
Ex. Lymphoblastic Leukemia, Glioblastoma, Myoblastic Leukemia
These are examples of what type of cancer cells?
Blastocysts
Study Tip: these types of cancers grow rapidly.
The _________ is the interval between each cellular division and every cell that reproduces goes through that. There are pauses and checkpoints in there that are supposed to stop mutations from occurring. These checkpoints are where these cancerous processes can be stopped because the cell recognizes that something is wrong. Sometimes those changes don’t get stopped or the cell just keeps growing.
Cell cycle
Notochord.
Skeletal system.
Muscular system.
Muscular layer of stomach and intestine. Excretory system.
Circulatory and lymphatic systems. Reproductive system except germ cells. Dermis of skin.
Lining of body cavity.
Adrenal cortex.
What germ level are cancers that affect these body systems originating?
Mesoderm
FYI
During ______ phase of the cell cycle the cancer cell does NOT grow, it just hangs out waiting to be called up like the reserves in the military and when your body needs more cells.
Quiescence
Referred to as G0
Ex. When you get a cut on your hand, now you need some skin cells, so the stem cells will enter the cell cycle and become skin cells to fill in the cut.
The _______ germ level consists of these cells:
1. Epithelial Layer
2. Skin Cells
Ex. Basal, Squamous, Keratinocytes, and Melanocytes.
These cells line all of the body cavities.
Ectoderm aka the outer shell
FYI
Replication of DNA
Interphase > Cell Function
What cell cycle phase is this?
Synthesis phase
Referred to as S
Some cells are continuously in the reproductive cell cycle like your ________ cells, because when these cells die they are replaced very, very frequently. The skin cell can go through the entire cell cycle in 8 hours, some other cells that are not quite as active can take up to a year to complete the cell cycle. There are some cells like neurons that exit the cell cycle and never come back so we know that there are some cells that _____ reproduce.
epithelial
never
Cellular ________ is defined as division and reproduction.
Proliferation
Ex. We are thinking about that cut on your hand again. Let’s just say when you cut your hand you lost 1,000 skin cells so your body is programed to replace it with 1,000 more skin cells from the reserves. The body is going to replace the missing with the exact same amount of cells that it needs to be replaced.
Cells have _________ as a form of regulation so when those cells start filling in the damaged area (remember the cut on your hand) the cells reproduce and when they start to bump up against other cells the cells say “Hey we are done now!!” and they STOP reproducing. So the normal number of new cells is equal to the number of dying cells.
contact inhibition
When the zygote is at the point that there is 128 cells clumped together; it’s forms a ball of cells and that ball of cells is called a ______. This group of cells implants itself in the uterine lining to form a child.
Blastocyst
Ex. This is very similar to what a cancer cell does when it migrates somewhere and becomes a malignant growth; it’s really kind of remarkable that there is that similarity between reproduction and cancer reproduction.
REMEMBER: When you have a patient that has cancer and their diagnosis contains the word BLAST, you should think in your head “This is going to be a very FAST growing cancer”.
Anything with an opening to the world has epithelial cells.
What germ level are cancers that affect these body systems originating?
Ectoderm aka the outer shell
FYI
This is a haploid cell, which can carry unpaired chromosomes. This is a particular multicellular organism always carries only half the number of chromosomes carried by a somatic cell of that particular organism. Germ cells are the cells which give rise to ________. Meiosis takes place during gametogenesis giving rise to haploid cells. Haploids fuse during sexual reproduction giving rise to a diploid zygote. This is considered what category of human cells?
Gametes
Study Tip: Ex. A human gamete contains only 23 chromosomes where as a human somatic cell contains 46 chromosomes. Gametogenesis is the process of gamete production.
Growth Occurs.
Normal metabolic roles are assumed.
What cell cycle phase is this?
First growth phase
Referred to as G1
The process of __________ is what happens when the cell leaves it’s stem cell status and matures. The cell grows up and specializes from a stem cell to a specialized body cell that serves a specific function.
differentiation
When we are diagnosing cancer, we do a biopsy of a patient with lung cancer and we look at that under the microscope and we say this cancer cell doesn’t really look like a lung cell it looks more like a stem cell. The pathologist would say that it’s poorly differentiated so that means it looks more like a stem cell then it does a lung cell. It is important to remember that when there is an undifferentiated cancer cell it looks more like a stem cell than it does like the cells of the actual ______ affected with the cancer.
organ
Every cell begins as a ________ embryonic stem cell. This is because all of the stem cells and all the embryonic stem cells look the same.
undifferentiated
Ex. Imagine looking at a nursery full of newborn babies, they all look like aliens, they are all scrunchie faced and red faced, crying, all wrapped in little blankets and they just look like a blanket with a face; it would be really hard to even pick out your child if you are just looking at a whole bunch of babies, so I know that they all don’t look exactly the same, but they really do look quite a bit alike; as they grow, and become more mature, they start to look more like themselves and less like the other babies in the nursery; that is what happens with cells as they grow up and specialize.
When a cancer cell is first born it is because of a mutation in the _______ of the cell. The earlier in the process that this happens, the closer the cell is to still being a stem cell when this mutation occurs the less differentiated that cell is going to be. If the pathologist documents this in his notes that means the change must have occurred while it was still a baby cell.
If the cancer mutation develops later in differentiation, the differentiation halts right where the mutation occurred so the cancer cells ______ differentiating once they develop the cancer mutation.
genetic material
stop
Cancers can be undifferentiated, poorly differentiated, or well differentiated. What is the difference?
Undifferentiated - Still a stem cell.
Poorly differentiated- More like a stem cell than a specialized cell.
Well differentiated - Most specialized type of cell.
Ex. The Dr will say “this is definitely a lung cell that has become cancerous.” If the cell is poorly differentiated.
The less differentiated a cancer cell is the more ________ it is. This makes it more difficult to treat this type of cancer and it makes the cancer cells more likely to metastasize.
malignant
The ______ differentiated a cancer is the more quickly it will grow rapidly and the more likely it is to metastasize.
LESS
STUDY Tip: This is IMPORTANT! So we know that if we have a patient that has poorly differentiated lung cancer, you see that in a pathology report that your patient is going to have a more difficult time based on this result alone. High risk for metastasis.
