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Cancer Testing |
How do doctors test for cancer?
(May 10, 2010)
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Cancer is a condition where an abnormal type of cell begins to grow in the body, usually affecting a particular part of the body or a particular hormone. This set of abnormal cells becomes a tumor and grows until it begins to attack the healthy cells of the body and begins to affect the normal process of body functions that occur in the area where the cancer is located. When cancer becomes widespread it also goes through a process known as metastasis where the cancer stops being limited to one area or organ and spreads across the body, usually affecting other organs as well. This stage of cancer is a fairly bleak stage as it is quite difficult to recover from such a situation.
Patients thus rely on their doctors to diagnose cancer at an early stage and to treat it so that the condition can be effectively cured before it becomes impossible to cure it. Cancer diagnosis is a complicated process that depends on sound medical experience and sometimes on pure luck. Most types of cancers produce symptoms that are associated with the body part which they have infiltrated. To give an example, one would suffer from symptoms associated with liver failure when the liver is affected by cancer. Any sign of a failing organ or part of the body should be investigated. Screening tests may be used to help doctors check if there is any hint of cancer in a patient’s body. One such test tests for the level of the HCG hormone which tends to be elevated when a person is suffering from cancer, even at a very early stage in the condition.
When symptoms are detected in a particular organ, the doctor might order further testing to determine the cause of the symptoms. These tests may include visual tests such as MR images and CT scans. These provide a picture of the area of the body being scanned. In such a picture, the organ will appear to have a patch or abnormal part if there is a tumor present. Further testing may involve surgical access to the tumor. This is done in order to collect a sample of the tumor tissue to test whether it is a cancer tumor or a benign tumor. For cancers that affect the colon, throat and lungs, an endoscope may be used to see the tumor and to grab a sample for testing.
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Submitted by M T on May 10, 2010 at 04:14
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