• Question: what is the worst type of cancer??

    Asked by tillyblundell to Jess on 15 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by imaperson, maddiie144.
    • Photo: Jessica Chu

      Jessica Chu answered on 15 Jun 2011:


      That is a good question!

      I think all cancers are as bad as each other because they can all end up killing someone. But certain cancers like breast and prostate cancers have been studied on more so we know more about them e.g. what mutations are responsible so we can make drugs that target these mutations. So we have more good treatments for certain cancers because more is known about them! Besides treatments, there are good diagnostic test (test that will tell you if someone is likely to have the cancer or not) for breast and prostate cancer!

      Because very little is known about pancreatic cancers (not enough work is done), I would say this type of cancer is quite bad because a pancreatic cancer patient is much much more likely to die than from a early stage breast cancer patient due to lack of available treament.

      I think when a cancer reaches late stage development and can metastasize – that is when it is most dangerous and the patient suffering from this will die quite soon 🙁
      metastasis is when your cancer cells have got enough mutations that it can free itself from the surrounding cells and travel in your blood to other places because your blood goes everywhere in your body. E.g. your lung cancer cells can travel via your blood vessels to your liver, stomach or/and brain and start growing there! Very scary thing!

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