Advice on Cancer...?

[E15]

Not being intnetionally morbid, I was wondering how cancer kills people?

[Thomas and Kylie's Mum !]

Well in my late fathers case ..he had stage 4 Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma ..basically it shut down his organs one by one ..it went to his stomach and worked its way around the body ...terrible towards the end ...wouldn't wish that on anyone

[girl_on_the_couch_inak]

presses ur organs till they cant function, take all the nutrition from the rest of the body.....the meds may leave the body more prone to infection.....leave people unable to swallow, breath, walk.....many variations, theres just so many different cancers...

[carbonfibrefreak]

well, it does depend on the type of cancer. basically organs that are nessesary to sustain life start failing.
just an example: brain cancer: the tumor can grow so large that the brain prolapses out of the skull through the opening where the spinal cord comes out. The first thing that gets 'squished' out is the brainstem, responsible for breathing, heart, etc. I'm no expert, but when you're not breathing and your heart isn't pumping, you're gonna experience brain death within seveal minutes due to oxygen starvation.

Most cancers send out metastases that then 'attack' other parts of the body.

[Tupac-Still-Lives]

Destroys cells and shit ....... shuts your body down gradually......and on the way it gives you the greatest pain......nasty disease

[lauren d]

Different ways, but for my dad in particular, it was the chemo that did it. It pretty much poisons you to attack the cancer, I think the key to surviving cancer it to survive the chemo/radiation.

[Robin D]

The biggest problem with cancer is that tumours are formed from cells of the bodys own tissues. The difference is, is that they grow at an abnormal rate.
Because the cancer is made up of the body's own cells, the bodys defence systems don't know that the cancer is an illness and so ignore the tumour growing. The body doesn't know it's ill.
As tumours grow, they make their own blood supply by tapping into veins and arteries and as a result, grow quickly. This drains the body of oxygen, nutrients and the sufferer loses weight and energy and eventually dies.
What in particular causes cancer, we do not know, what we do to cure it is equally a mystery. But science WILL overcome the illness eventually.

[Yanda]

Not all cancers kill and cancer in earlier stages can be treated and cured. There is no single answer to this question as it depends what type of cancer and which part of the body it attaches itself.