Characteristics of Cancer Cells

After the billions spent on research, we now know the following characteristics of cancer  cells. These characteristics are of fundamental importance. All cancer treatments, conventional or otherwise, focus on manipulating the cell and its environment.Knowing the characteristics is therefore a key to winning the cancer war.

These characteristics are:

• Cancer cells have greatly prolonged life spans compared to normal cells.

• Cancer cells fail to develop the specialized functions of their normal counterparts.

• Masses of cancer cells may become like parasites, developing their own network of blood vessels and siphoning off key nutrients from the body.

  • Cancer cells prefer sugar as source of energy as compared to normal cells which favor oxygen.

• Cancer cells are more sensitive to heat and less able to tolerate high temperature compared to normal cells.

• Cancer cells form a tumor, or a swelling caused by the abnormal growth if left unchecked. The tumor can invade adjacent normal tissue or spread through lymph vessels or the blood vessels to other normal tissues.

• Cancer cells are usually benign and are carried by many people within their body. Such benign tumors are encapsulated by fiber and insulated from the body and from their toxins.

• Cancers that metastasize quickly are less mature and more aggressive. They are more malignant. An aggressive cancer has a doubling time of 60 days or less; a moderate cancer doubles in 61-150 days, and a indolent cancer doubles in 151-300 days,and a very indolent cancer takes 300 days or more.

• The average size of a breast cancer when first detected by mammography is about 600 million cells, or about 0.25 inches across; the average size detectable by manual palpation is about 45 billion cells and about 1.25 inches in diameter.

• Cancer cells that metastasize exhibit little to no cell-to-cell adhesion as compared to normal cells that tend to adhere to each other to form well-defined tissues (except blood cells).