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Asked by aiishii to Dalya, Derek, Sarah, Tim, Tom on 19 Jun 2011. This question was also asked by aishaa.
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Sarah Thomas answered on 15 Jun 2011:
Cancer happens when your DNA gets damaged and the damaged DNA gets copied into a new cell. The cells with damaged DNA don’t look right and they grow out of control and form lumps called tumours. The cancer cells can break away from the tumour and go somewhere else in the body and start a new tumour and this is how cancer spreads.
Things that damage your DNA are things like smoking, drinking alcohol, sun tanning and eating unhealthy foods.
But each time a new cells grows and it’s DNA is copied, there is a chance that errors can be made in the DNA and this can lead to cancers too. The older you are the greater your chances of getting cancer just because your cells and your DNA has been copied more times.
People lose their hair when they have cancer because of a treatment called Chemotherapy. When a patient is having Chemo, the doctors give them a cocktail of drugs. This drugs are designed to target and kill fast growing cells. The way that cancer cells grow so quickly is what really defines them as cancer cells so this is a good property to target. However there are other cells that grow quickly in the body, for example, skin cells, stomach lining and hair follicle cells. So when a patients is having Chemo, some of this normal healthy cells can get damaged to. And this is why their hair falls out and they are so weakened by Chemotherapy. So as you can see, this treatment is not perfect and this is one of the reasons that we are doing research to find better treatments for cancers.
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Dalya Soond answered on 15 Jun 2011:
There have been many questions about causes of cancer, so I will not answer again here so I can get through more questions.
Cancer doesn’t cause people to lose their hair, it is the chemotherapy that they are treated with. Chemotherapy is a broad name for drugs that kill cells that divide very quickly.
Cancer cells divide very quickly. (That’s why tumours grow so fast and when they get very big, can physically block the organ they live in from working properly.) If you give chemotherapy, then the cancer cells will be the main cells that are killed.
However, there are other types of normal cells that divide very fast and will also get killed. They are mainly hair follicles, lining of your stomach and intestines, and your blood cells. That means you will get bald, get nauseous, and be more likely to get infections and to bleed heavily if you get cut.
A major aim of cancer research is to develop drugs that work only on the cancer cells. There have been some fantastic successes like a drug called Gleevac. This drug affects only cells with a particular mutation which normal cells don’t have. This mutation in a gene called c-kit is very common in a certain type of leukemia and also in some stomach and intestinal tumours. People with these types of cancer will be tested to see if they have the mutation, and if they do will be treated with Gleevac.
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Tim Millar answered on 15 Jun 2011:
Chemotherapy for the hair loss especially a drug called “cyclophosphamide”. This chemical was invented during the first world war as a chemical warefare agent – so it must be quite toxic. Its called a mustard and kills fast dividing cells like cancer but also like the hair follicle. Fortunately, this is a temporary effect and the hair grows back when you stop taking the drug.
Comments
aiishii commented on :
Thanks For Usefull Info
aiishii commented on :
Tom check the Hyperliink??