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Cancer Article Questions

 * 1) The article begins by mentioning two important people with cancer. Who is Elizabeth Edwards? Who is Tony Snow? (Include their politcal party, job, and current health status-this article was written in April-your answer should have more than what you can find in the article) **Elizabeth Edwards is the wife of John Edwards, a Democratic nominee for President. She has breast cancer and has had spots of cancer found in her hip. At their discovery, the tumors were said to be untreatable, however, there are now new treatments that might be able to cure the disease. Tony Snow is the senior press secretary for President Bush and has cancer that went from his colon to his liver. He had surgery in March to remove a tumor found in his abdominal.**
 * 2) What is a metastatic cancer cell? **A metastatic cancer cell is a cancer cell that is on the move, and that cannot be studied in a culture, but must be observed in a real life situation.**
 * 3) Why does the author call cancer cells barbarians and cannibals? **Cancer cells steal nutrients and other essentials for their neighboring cells, and if they get really greedy, they will "eat" their neighboring cells, both acts are considered barbaric and cannibalism by the author.**
 * 4) What do we know about the events that transform a normal cell to a cancer cell? **Sometimes cells interpret signals as meaning to do something that mutates the cell's genes, and it becomes immortal and the basic cancer cell.**
 * 5) Why is harder to study metastatic cancer cells? **Metastatic cancer cells are always on the move, and have to be studied in their natural environment.**
 * 6) How many cells do primary tumors shed each day (in a rodent)? Yet how many metastatic tumors do these rodents have? **Out of a billion cells in a tumor, the tumor shedded about a million cells, and the number that became metastatic was small enough to "be counted on the fingers of a single hand."**
 * 7) Describe two ways metastatic cells can travel through the body avoiding detection from our immune system. **The cells do one of two things, they either become smaller and like a bacteria to just flow through the blood, or the cell will attach itself to a platelet or other red blood cell and allow itself to be transferred to different areas of the body.**
 * 8) Where is the first site (oasis for the cancer cell) that metastasis generally occurs? Why? Why is it an oasis? (What is an oasis?) **The first site that metastasis generally occurs is at the site of a wound. These areas are considered oasis' because they have many growth hormones and nutrients to help the wound to heal, but for the cancer cells, it is a feast and a new place to make their home.**
 * 9) What is a dormant micrometastasis? Why are they relevant to human health? **A dorman micrometastasis is a metastasis cell that has settled in an area away from the tumor, however, they do not do the damage of normal cancer cells, and just exist. Even though they rarely relapse, the micrometastasis cell is still a threat to human health because if it does have a relapse, the person has to deal with cancer again, and 90% of cancer deaths occur from a relapse.**
 * 10) What evidence do we have that metastasis occurs in organs that are similar to the organ of the primary tumor? Give two examples. **The evidence is that many types of cancer cells go to similar organs, such as breast cancer going to bone cells because they learn to use the calcium in the breast milk and then use the same abilities to steal calcium from other bone cells. Another example is malignant melanoma, which is more likely to relapse in the brain because the neural tissues are similar to the melanoma cells.**