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 * Overview of Cancer:**

Although there are many kinds of cancer, they all start because of out-of-control growth of abnormal cells. Normal body cells grow, divide and die in an orderly fashion. During the early years of a person's life, normal cells divide more rapidly until adulthood, at which point cells in most parts of the body divide, only to replace worn-out or dying cells and to repair injuries. Instead of dying, cancer cells outlive normal cells and continue to form new abnormal cells. Cancer cells develop because of damage to DNA, the substance in every cell that directs all activities. Most of the time when DNA becomes damaged, the body is able to repair it, but in cancer cells, the damaged DNA is not repaired. People can inherit damaged DNA, which accounts for inherited cancers, but more often, a person's DNA becomes damaged by exposure to something in the environment, like smoking. Cancer usually forms as a tumor, although some cancers, like leukemia, do not. Instead, these cancer cells involve the blood and blood-forming organs and circulate through other tissues where they grow. Often, cancer cells travel to other parts of the body where they begin to grow and replace normal tissue. This process is called metastasis. Regardless of where a cancer may spread, it is always named for the place it began. For instance, breast cancer that spreads to the liver is still called breast cancer, not liver cancer. Not all tumors are cancerous. Benign tumors do not spread to other parts of the body and, with very rare exceptions, are not life threatening. Different types of cancer can behave very differently. For example, lung cancer and breast cancer are very different diseases, growing at different rates and responding to different treatments. That is why people with cancer need treatment that is aimed at their particular kind of cancer. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States. Half of all men and one third of all women in the United States will develop cancer during their lifetimes.

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