What is the difference between a benign tumor and a cancerous tumor?
Friday, May 21st, 2010 at
2:38 am
What is the difference between a benign tumor and a cancerous tumor? And please don’t say that a cancerous tumor has cancerous cells, why are those cells considered cancerous?
Filed under: Alternative Medicine
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. Benign tumors aren’t cancer while malignant once are.Most cancers are named for where they start. For example, lung cancer starts in the lung, and breast cancer starts in the breast. The spread of cancer from one part of the body to another is called metastasis. Symptoms and treatment depend on the cancer type and how advanced it is. Treatment plans may include surgery, radiation and/or chemotherapy.
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Cancerous cells exhibit uncontrolled growth, are often invasive, and may metastasis, . Benign tumors do not exhibit these characteristics..
benign tumor grows and has then stops when obstructed due to an off growth switch .
cancerous or malignant tumor doesn’t have an of switch or it’s broken and grows nonstop even around obstructions in/on the body.
The big difference is whether the cancer will metastasise or not.
Metastasis is the spreading of the cancer from its original location to other locations in the body - causing "secondary tumours" elsewhere.
A benign tumour can still be life-threatening, depending on its location and size. For example, a non-metastatic tumour in the brain is still going to interfere with brain function, squeezing other bits of the brain, using-up blood and oxygen, etc.
The whole benign/malignant thing is why some tumours are considered more "serious" than others. Breast cancer, for example, should on the face of it not be considered too serious: the breast is not a vital organ, so even if there is a large and unsightly tumour there, it shouldn’t be life-threatening. But breast cancers are very prone to metastasis - particularly to the lungs. since the lungs *are* a vital organ, cancers there will likely kill you, so breast cancer is taken very seriously.
Edit:
*all* tumours are cancerous. The distinction you are asking about is between "benign" and "malignant" cancers.