The American Cancer Society (ACS) indicates that cigarette smoking is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. It states that 23.7 percent of people 25 to 44 years old were current smokers in 2008. Cigarettes contain nicotine, the...
Lung cancer is cancer that starts in the lungs, typically in cells that are in the air passages. Your lungs are part of the respiratory system and help you breathe. Tumors in your lungs may be benign or malignant; it is only the malignant tumors...
Lung cancer occurs when cells within the lungs develop genetic mutations that causes them to grow abnormally. This can be due to exposure to certain things in the environment--such as tobacco smoke, radon, and asbestos--or due to hereditary...
The majority of lung cancer patients are diagnosed with non-small cell lung carcinoma. This disease grows more slowly than small cell lung cancer, but it has spread to other parts of the body by the time 40 percent of people with the disease are...
Metastatic bone lesions are cancerous cells that have traveled from other organs in the body and begun growing on the bone tissue. The cells look like cells from the organ they originated from but have grown into the tissues of the skeleton. More...
The National Cancer Institute reports small cell lung cancer as the most aggressive lung cancer; without treatment, average survival is two to four months. End-of-life care becomes a central issue as this progressive disease enters the final...
Bone tissue growth and remodeling begins in utero and continues throughout a person's life. Specialized cells called osteoblasts continuously deposit new bone tissue, while other cells called osteoclasts breast down old tissue. The balance between...
Lung cancer is a complex medical condition, which is the result of cells within the lungs developing the ability to grow very quickly and spread to other tissues. How far the cancerous cells have spread is important for determining a patient's...
Arthritis is inflammation in the joints. Inflammation is usually characterized by changes in the tissues, blood vessels and immune system in the affected area. Arthritis typically refers to either osteoarthritis or rheumatoid arthritis....
The kidney is an organ in the urinary system and is involved in filtering the blood. It removes toxins and waste products from the blood and turns them into urine, which is then excreted. Sometimes the cells of the kidney can become cancerous,...
Liver cancer, also known as hepatic cancer, is a malignant neoplastic disease of the liver, which starts in the liver, as opposed to a cancer that originates in another organ and migrates to the liver. In stage IV, or the final stage of liver...
The most common type of kidney tumor in America is a renal cell carcinoma, and the number of cases has been increasing. As of 2007, there were approximately 51,000 cases and 8,000 deaths every year from renal cancer, according to David Swanson,...
The ovaries are a pair of female reproductive organs that produce eggs during the menstrual cycle. If you develop abnormal cancerous cells within your ovaries, you could be diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Symptoms of this condition can include...
Over 200,000 American women are expected to be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, according to estimates by the National Cancer Institute, and 38 percent of these diagnoses will be made after the cancer has spread outside the breast. The...
Cancer specialists identify two main types of lung cancer: small cell lung cancer, or SCLC, and non-small cell lung cancer, or NSCLC. While each of these could be divided into four separate, increasingly serious stages, only the non-small cell...
When someone receives the news they have Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, it can be devastating. Most cancer, including breast cancer, is diagnosed and evaluated in stages, the higher the number; the less chance of beating the disease. Breast...
