Pancreatic Cancer

Basics of cancer

Cancer is caused when there is an abnormal and uncontrolled growth of cells in a part of the body. Although there are various types of cancer, they all start because of uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells.

Normal cells of the body grow, divide, die in an orderly fashion and are under strict control of various factors.

The cancerous cells grow and divide in an abnormal fashion and are different from the normal cells. The main cause of cancer is damage or certain changes that occur spontaneously in the genetic material of a cell called as DNA. DNA is present in the nucleus of every cell and directs all activities of the cell including cell division. Often when the DNA is damaged the body is able to repair it but in cancer cells, the damaged DNA is not repaired. People can inherit damaged DNA, which accounts for inherited cancers. Usually, a person's DNA may get damaged by exposure to the external environment, like smoking, radiation, chemicals, drugs etc. In this manner, both genetic and environmental factors play a role in development of cancer.

The cancer cells may remain localised at the site of origin or may travel to other parts of the body where they begin to grow and replace normal tissue. This process is called metastasis.

Not all tumors are cancerous. Benign (non cancerous) tumors do not spread (metastasise) to other parts of the body and, with very rare exceptions, are not life threatening, while malignant tumors are dangerous and can spread to other parts of the body and are not localised to a particular area.³