Analysis of Cancer - The Enemy Within Essay examples -- Exploratory Es

Cancer - The Enemy Within      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Abstract: Cancer has been known and feared since antiquity, but its imperative danger could only be realized until fairly recently. Indeed as knowledge of the disease grew in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, fear increased when people became more aware that most cancers had no available cure. Cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells reproduce without control, destroy healthy tissue, and eventually cause deterioration to the body. This paper is a discussion on how cancer develops and spreads, some of the various types of cancer, and the causes of the disease.    Cancer is a disease in which cells multiply without control, destroy healthy tissue, and endanger life. About 100 kinds of cancer attack human beings. This disease is a leading cause of death in many countries. In the United States and Canada, only diseases of the heart and the blood vessels kill more people. Cancer occurs in most species of animals and in many kinds of plants, as well as in human beings.    Cancer strikes people of all ages but especially middle-aged persons and the elderly. It occurs about equally among people of both sexes. The disease can attack any part of the body and may spread to virtually any other part. However the parts of the body which are most often affected are the skin, the female breasts, organs of the digestive, respiratory, reproductive, blood-forming, lymphatic, and urinary systems.    The various cancers are classified in two ways. The primary body site, as and by the type of body tissue in which the cancer originates. They can thus be divided further in to two main groups; carcinomas and sarcomas. Carcinomas are cancers that start in epitheli... ...r are fatal. In the past, the methods of treatment gave patients little hope for recovery, but the methods of diagnosing and treating the disease have improved greatly since the 1930's. Today, about half of all cancer patients survive at least five years after treatment. People who remain free of cancer that long after treatment have a good chance of remaining permanently free of the disease. But much research remains to be done to find methods of preventing and curing cancer.    Bibliography Allison, Trent. Background into Medicine. New York: Lincoln Press, 1982. Drummond, Phillip. Cancer. 1st ed. New York: Prentice Hall Publishers, 1984 Harris, Jules E.. "Cancer." Encyclopedia Britannica. 1993 ed. Sipp, Warren. Encyclopedia to Cancer. New York: National Academy Press,1989. Veels, Thomas. Science of Cancer. Washington DC, 1984.