About Cancer

Cancer is a group of many related diseases that all have to do with cells. Cells make up all living things, including the human body. There are billions of cells in each person’s body.

Cancer is caused when some cells are not normal and grow and spread very fast. Normal body cells grow and divide and know when to stop growing. Over time, they also die. Unlike these normal cells, cancer cells just continue to grow and divide out of control and don’t die. They can get so out of hand that they start taking over and killing healthy cells.

Cancer cells usually group or clump together to form tumours. A growing tumour becomes a lump of cancer cells that can destroy the normal cells around the tumour and damage the body’s healthy tissues. This can make someone very sick. However, tumours can sometimes be benign, meaning non-cancerous.

What causes it?

You probably know a kid who had chickenpox – maybe even you. But you probably don’t know any kids who’ve had cancer. If you packed a large football stadium with kids, probably only one child in that stadium would have cancer.

Doctors aren’t sure why some people get cancer and others don’t. They do know that cancer is not contagious. You can’t catch cancer from someone else who has it. Cancer isn’t caused by germs, like colds or the flu. So don’t be afraid of kids or anyone else with cancer. You can talk to, play with and hug someone with cancer.

Kids can’t get cancer from anything they do either. Some kids think that a bump on the head causes brain cancer or that bad people get cancer. This isn’t true! Kids don’t do anything wrong to get cancer.

Sometimes cancer cells break away from the original tumour and travel to other areas of the body, where they keep growing and can go on to form new tumours. This is how cancer spreads.

Finding out about Cancer

It can take a while for a doctor to figure out a kid has cancer. That’s because the symptoms cancer can cause, such as weight loss, fevers, swollen glands, or feeling overly tired or sick for a while, may not be caused by cancer. When a kid has these symptoms it can be because of something less serious, like an infection. With medical testing, the doctor can figure out what’s causing the trouble.

If the doctor suspects cancer, he or she can do tests to figure out if that’s the problem. A doctor might order x-rays and blood tests and recommend the person go to see an oncologist. An oncologist is a doctor who takes care of and treats cancer patients. The oncologist will run other tests to find out if someone really has cancer. If so, tests can determine what kind of cancer it is and if it has spread to other parts of the body. Based on the results, the doctor will decide the best way to treat it.

One test that an oncologist (or a surgeon) may perform is a biopsy. During a biopsy a piece of tissue is removed from a tumour or a place in the body where cancer is suspected, like the bone marrow. Don’t worry – someone getting this test will get special treatment to keep him or her comfortable during the biopsy. After the sample is collected, it will be examined under a microscope for cancer cells. The sooner cancer is found and treatment begins, the better chance someone has of recovery.

Treating it

Cancer is treated with surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation – or sometimes a combination of these treatments. The choice of treatment depends on:

• the type of cancer someone has (the kind of abnormal cells causing the cancer)
• the stage of the tumour (how much the cancer has spread within the body, if at all)

Surgery is the oldest form of treatment for cancer. Three out of every five people with cancer will have an operation to remove the cancer. During surgery the doctor tries to take out as many cancer cells as possible. Some healthy cells or tissue may also be removed to make sure the cancer is gone.

Chemotherapy is the use of anti-cancer medicines to treat cancer. These medicines are sometimes taken as a pill, but are usually given through a special intravenous line, also called an IV. An IV is a tiny catheter (straw-like tube) that is put into a vein through someone’s skin, usually on the arm. The catheter is attached to a bag that holds the medicine. The medicine flows from the bag into a vein, which puts the medicine into the blood, where it can travel throughout the body and attack cancer cells.

Chemotherapy is usually given over a number of weeks or months. Often, a permanent catheter is placed under the skin into a larger blood vessel of the upper chest. This way, a person can easily get several courses of chemotherapy and other medicines through this catheter without having a new IV needle put in. The catheter remains under the skin until all the cancer treatment is completed.

Radiation therapy uses high-energy waves, such as x-rays (invisible waves that can pass through most parts of the body), to damage and destroy cancer cells. Radiation can cause tumours to shrink and sometimes to even go away completely.

Radiation therapy is one of the most common treatments for cancer. For many people, cancer goes away after receiving radiation treatments. With both chemotherapy and radiation, kids may experience side effects. A side effect can be an extra problem that’s caused by a treatment. Radiation and anti-cancer drugs can destroy cancer cells but, unfortunately, they often destroy healthy cells too. This can cause problems such as loss of appetite, tiredness, vomiting, or hair loss.

With radiation, a person might have red or irritated skin in the area that’s being treated. All these problems go away and hair grows back after the treatment is over. During the treatment, there are medicines that can help a kid feel better.

While treatment is still going on, a kid might not be able to attend school or be around crowds of people because they need to rest and can’t risk getting infections, such as the flu, when he or she already isn’t feeling well.