Cancer chemotherapy

Abstract

Cancer is the popular term for a malignant neoplasm, and is so called after the Greek for crab. A cancer arises when cells undergo malignant change, escaping the mechanisms which normally hold growth and cell division in check. Tumour cells divide in an unregulated way and spread in the body, both at the site of the original cancer and by remote seeding forming metastases. Tumours of epithelial cells are most common and are called carcinomata. Cancer accounts for about a fifth of deaths in developed countries.