14 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Could someone please help ID the cancer cells in this image?
Cancer biologist here. I'm so sorry to hear about your family members' recent diagnoses.
Cancer is generally caused caused by mutations in specific genes. Some of these genes control cell division directly (of which mitosis is one part), and other genes are responsible for protecting cells from molecular damage. Normal cells have several ways to prevent cancer. First, cell division itself is a tightly controlled process. Additionally, cells that sustain certain types of damage commit "suicide", preventing themselves from acquiring cancer-causing mutations.
Cancer cells do indeed undergo mitosis/cell division as you mentioned, but they complete the whole process. The difference between mitosis in cancer cells and normal cells is that in the cancer cells, the mutations they have acquired enable them to grow out-of-control and "take over" the normal cells.
Comment by astral_walk at 18/12/2021 at 14:35 UTC*
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Interesting. Thank you and u/hipsterlatino for responding. And thank you for your kindness, it’s been a very rough year.
So, if you don’t mind, I’d like to ask a bit further because this really has me curious, and learning about this helps me to process better. One of the explanations the doctors have given for my granddad having lung cancer is that he smoked for 10 years during his 20s, which as an explanation seems a bit far fetched now that he’s well into his 80s and of course age is a large risk factor for cancer as well. In this case, if the theory around it being because he smoked that long ago is true, does that have to do with the lung cell damage that was caused way back then? Can it take that long?
As well, in my grandma’s case, she was just diagnosed with ovarian cancer. When she had a hysterectomy in her 40s (now late 60s), they removed everything but her remaining ovary for whatever reason, I guess because at the time consensus was that they would need to keep it in for maintaining her hormonal needs. This resulted, over time, in her ovary growing to the size of a football, which she just had removed. I’ve been learning lately about how female reproductive tissue can keep growing if some form of damage is caused to it, and how imbalanced hormones past menopause can increase risk factors for uterine and ovarian cancer. Do you know much about how that would lead eventually to cancer, and what genes would be damaged to cause it, etc? My aunt was also diagnosed with breast cancer, with the causes being hormonal, so the hormonal risk factor especially has me curious.
Thank you for responding as it is, I know these are loaded questions, so don’t feel obligated to respond.