Cancer Basics Explained: Causes, Types, Diagnosis, and Modern Treatments (2025)

By Editorial Team

What Will You Learn?

  • What is Cancer and How Does It Develop?
  • Cancer Diagnosis and Staging
  • Cancer Treatment

What is Cancer?

Cancer is a group of more than 100 different diseases characterized by the uncontrolled, abnormal growth of cells. It results from changes or mutations in the genetic material (DNA). Because it takes years for mutations to accumulate, cancer is primarily a disease of aging. Tumors form when abnormal cells growing out of control form a mass. Tumors can be benign (non-cancerous) or malignant (cancerous and capable of spreading).


Major Classes of Cancer

  • Carcinomas: Begin in the skin or tissues covering organs (e.g., breast, colon).
  • Sarcomas: Start in connective tissues (e.g., muscle, bone).
  • Lymphomas: Originate in the lymphatic system.
  • Leukemias: Affect blood-forming tissues.

How Common is Cancer?

  • Lifetime risk: About 1 in 2 men and 1 in 3 women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer during their lifetime (American Cancer Society, 2024).
  • Incidence (U.S., 2024): 2,001,140 new cases.
  • Incidence (Global, 2022): 20 million new cases; projected to reach 28 million per year by 2040 (GLOBOCAN).
  • Mortality (U.S., 2024): 611,720 deaths.
  • Mortality (Global, 2022): 9.7 million deaths; projected to rise to 16.2 million by 2040.
  • Most common cancers (U.S., 2024): Prostate (men), breast (women), lung & bronchus, colorectal, urinary bladder, uterine, melanoma, thyroid.
  • Most deadly cancers (U.S., 2024): Lung & bronchus, prostate, breast, colorectal, pancreatic, liver, ovary.

What Causes Cancer?

Cancer is caused by mutations in genes controlling cell growth and death. These can be:
  • Sporadic (90–95%): Caused by environmental/lifestyle factors (tobacco, radiation, diet, obesity, infections).
  • Hereditary (5–10%): Inherited gene mutations (e.g., BRCA1/2, Lynch syndrome).
Major risk factors: Age, tobacco use, obesity, poor diet, inactivity, certain infections.

Hereditary Cancer Syndromes

Some people inherit mutations that increase cancer risk (e.g., BRCA1/2, APC, TP53, PTEN, RB1, Lynch syndrome, Von Hippel-Lindau syndrome). Even with a hereditary mutation, additional mutations are usually required for cancer to develop.

Cancer Screening, Diagnosis, and Staging

  • Detection: Symptoms, screening tests (colonoscopy, mammography, Pap/HPV, PSA), and biopsy for confirmation.
  • Staging: TNM system (Tumor size, Node involvement, Metastasis); stages I–IV; tumor grade (how abnormal cells look).

Modern Cancer Treatments

Local and Systemic Therapies

  • Local: Surgery, radiation.
  • Systemic: Chemotherapy, hormonal therapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy.

Surgery

Best for localized cancers; minimally invasive and robotic techniques are improving outcomes.

Radiation Therapy

Uses high-energy rays; advanced techniques like SBRT and proton therapy minimize damage to healthy tissue.

Chemotherapy

Drugs that kill rapidly dividing cells; used before/after surgery, for advanced/metastatic cancers.

Hormonal Therapy

Blocks hormones that drive some cancers (e.g., breast, prostate).


Precision or Personalized Medicine

  • Targeted therapies: Drugs matched to genetic changes in the tumor (e.g., HER2-targeted drugs for breast cancer, EGFR/ALK/BRAF inhibitors for lung and melanoma).
  • Immunotherapy: Boosts the immune system to fight cancer (e.g., checkpoint inhibitors, CAR-T cell therapy, cancer vaccines).
  • Combination therapies: Combining targeted, immune, and traditional therapies for better outcomes.

Repurposed Drugs in Cancer Therapy

What Are Repurposed Drugs?

Repurposed drugs are medications originally developed for non-cancer conditions—such as diabetes, infections, or cardiovascular diseases—that are now being studied or used to treat cancer. Drug repurposing leverages existing safety data and clinical experience, often accelerating the development of new cancer therapies and reducing costs.

Why Repurpose Drugs?

  • Faster to clinic: Established safety profiles allow quicker clinical testing in cancer.
  • Cost-effective: Less expensive than developing new drugs from scratch.
  • Novel mechanisms: Many non-cancer drugs affect biological pathways relevant to cancer.

Recent Advances and Clinical Opportunities (2024)

A 2024 review in Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology highlights a growing number of non-oncology drugs with promising anticancer effects (Liu et al., 2024). These drugs can:

  • Modulate the tumor microenvironment
  • Inhibit cancer cell metabolism
  • Target inflammation and immune responses
  • Affect angiogenesis (formation of new blood vessels)
  • Interfere with cell signaling pathways

Notable Examples

  • Metformin (antidiabetic): Inhibits cancer cell metabolism; under study for breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers.
  • Aspirin (anti-inflammatory): May lower risk and recurrence of colorectal and other cancers.
  • Beta-blockers (antihypertensive): May slow cancer progression by blocking stress-related signaling.
  • Disulfiram (alcohol dependence): Shows anticancer activity, especially with copper, in glioblastoma and prostate cancer.
  • Itraconazole (antifungal): Anti-angiogenic and anti-proliferative effects in lung and prostate cancers.
  • Statins (cholesterol-lowering): Inhibit tumor cell proliferation and metastasis; being studied in various solid tumors.
  • Chloroquine/hydroxychloroquine (antimalarial): Target autophagy, potentially enhancing chemotherapy and immunotherapy.

Clinical Trials and Challenges

  • Many repurposed drugs are in clinical testing for different cancers.
  • Broader adoption requires large, randomized trials and regulatory support.
  • Personalized approaches and biomarkers are increasingly used to identify patients most likely to benefit.

The Future for Drug Repurposing

Repurposed drugs are being integrated into combination regimens with chemotherapy, targeted therapies, or immunotherapies. They offer hope for improving outcomes, especially in hard-to-treat or rare cancers, and can help address global disparities in cancer care due to their affordability and accessibility.

References for this section:

  • Liu, X., et al. "Repurposing non-oncology drugs in cancer: mechanisms and clinical opportunities." Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy 9, Article number: 80 (2024). Full text
  • Pantziarka P, et al. "Repurposing drugs in oncology (ReDO)." Cancer Treat Rev. 2014;40(8):1173-1186.

Supportive and Palliative Care

Focuses on symptom relief, side effect management, and quality of life. Early integration improves outcomes.

The Future of Cancer Treatment

Breakthroughs in targeted, immune, and repurposed therapies are making cancer care more personalized, effective, and less toxic. Ongoing research continues to expand treatment options and improve survival and quality of life.


Further Learning & Downloadable Resources


References


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