What happens to cancer cells after a cancer patient dies?

Cancer cells can kill people, mostly because they:

Excessive proliferation until the blood vessels of organs are ruptured;

Continuous spread and metastasis cause various complications;

Side effects after treatment;

Excessive demand for nutrients, etc.

No matter how crazy cancer cells are, their survival soil is the nutrients in human blood. After death, when the blood stops flowing and the nutrients are exhausted, cancer cells will also die, and will not continue to spread outside the body like some viruses.

Is its goal to perish together with humans?

Cancer cells have three essential characteristics: unlimited proliferation, transformation, and easy metastasis.

This shows that cancer cells can proliferate indefinitely and destroy normal cell tissues;

It will also invade the surrounding normal tissues and transfer to other parts through the body's circulatory system and lymphatic system, like a "time bomb" growing in the human body.

In addition, cancer cells are greedy and cunning:

1. Excessive greed

In order to ensure adequate nutrition for themselves, cancer cells also promote the formation of blood vessels and greedily seize nutrients from other tissues. Cancer patients become increasingly thinner, which in turn causes other diseases.

2. Being too cunning

Cancer cells also continue to evolve camouflage capabilities, deceiving the immune system into recognizing them as normal cells, and even hibernating.

A study published in the scientific journal Cell suggests that all cancer cells may have the ability to enter a dormant state as a survival mechanism to avoid the ravages of chemotherapy.

That is to say, when cancer cells are attacked by chemotherapy, they enter a state of slow growth and division and do not absorb nutrients, just like hibernating animals. Chemotherapy generally only indiscriminately kills actively proliferating cells, so cancer cells successfully avoid chemotherapy damage.

So some cancer cases that appear to be cured will recur after a few years.

It is the greedy and cunning nature of cancer cells for survival that determines their crazy nature, and their madness will inevitably foreshadow their own demise.

The reason why cancer cells appear is mainly due to problems with genes, which lead to disordered cell growth signals.

Originally, normal cells in the human body divide and die according to genetic instructions until they complete their life cycle.

However, problems with the genes that suppress cancer symptoms and genes that cause cancer (i.e., tumor suppressor genes and oncogenes) in the human body, or other unknown problems, cause errors in the signal instructions received by the cells, just like a computer program infected with a virus:

The cells' "division signals" are constantly being sent out, just like new windows popping up endlessly on a computer;

The signals for “stop dividing” and “die naturally” are “turned off” or blocked, just like a computer virus page cannot be turned off;

Popular Science

In carcinogenesis research, it was found that the occurrence of cancer is due to the abnormal activation of certain proto-oncogenes, also known as oncogenes, or the inactivation of tumor suppressor genes.

However, the occurrence of cancer is not simply due to the mutation of one or several oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes, but also requires the fulfillment of other conditions. Therefore, the causes of cancer are very complex.

If the computer is not disinfected in time, the virus will destroy other functions of the computer. Generally, people will restart the computer or find an antivirus expert to repair the computer;

A computer can be restarted, but human life cannot be restarted, so cancer is particularly scary.

Whether we admit it or not, cancer seems to be a ruthless "executioner" who is born with the "killing" instinct.

In this regard, we can only try our best to improve medical standards to treat cancer patients. If we want to completely cure cancer, we must study genes and also study what causes genetic problems.

At present, it is generally believed that cancer is mainly caused by the following factors:

External environmental influences: such as noise, garbage, dust, minerals, chemical pollution or being in a radioactive environment;

Bad habits: such as smoking, drinking, not exercising, not eating well, staying up late, overwork, not paying attention to hygiene, etc.

Negative emotional problems: violent mood swings, long-term anger, quarrels, anxiety, inferiority, depression, etc. are not good for health;

Genetic problems, etc.: People with a family history of genetic cancer, especially those with more than two cases of a certain cancer in their immediate family members, are advised to have regular physical examinations.

Let professionals take over the fight against cancer. What we ordinary people can do is to manage our own lives and wait for the day when humans solve the problem of cancer.

References

[1] Rehman et al., Colorectal Cancer Cells Enter a Diapause-like DTP State to Survive Chemotherapy, 2021, Cell 184, 226–242

[2] Popular Science: How do cancer cells kill people? You will be shocked after reading this!

Author: Lina