Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
Cancer is a group of diseases involving abnormal cell growth with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. [3] [4] Cancer can be difficult to diagnose because its signs and symptoms are often nonspecific, meaning they may be general phenomena that do not point directly to a specific disease process. [5]
This notion is particularly strong in breast cancer culture. [240] One idea about why people with cancer are blamed or stigmatized, called the just-world fallacy, is that blaming cancer on the patient's actions or attitudes allows the blamers to regain a sense of control. This is based upon the blamers' belief that the world is fundamentally ...
In people with cancer, cachexia is diagnosed from unintended weight loss of more than 5%. For cancer patients with a body mass index of less than 20 kg/m 2, cachexia is diagnosed after the unintended weight loss of more than 2%. [12] Additionally, it can be diagnosed through sarcopenia, or loss of skeletal muscle mass. [12]
Perhaps most concerning: The age of the average cancer patient is decreasing. In 1995, 61% of cancer diagnoses were among those ages 65 and older. But by 2020, that proportion had dropped to 58%.
Cancer-related fatigue is a symptom of fatigue that is experienced by nearly all cancer patients. [1] Among patients receiving cancer treatment other than surgery, it is essentially universal. Fatigue is a normal and expected side effect of most forms of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and biotherapy. [2]
Generally, it is believed that the cancer arises, or a pre-existing cancer is encouraged, during the process of repairing the trauma, rather than the cancer being caused directly by the trauma. [83] However, repeated injuries to the same tissues might promote excessive cell proliferation , which could then increase the odds of a cancerous mutation.
Screenings are important tools used to detect cancer early on, when it's more likely to be treatable. But many screening guidelines phase out these tests over time based on a patient's life ...