It has been designed to meet the physical and emotional needs of cancer patients and their families. Click here for more information about The John A. DeQuattro Community Cancer Center. Cancer is not an outside force that invades the body, such as a virus or bacteria. It is the result of a deadly change within the body's own cells. In a strange twist of fate, these renegade cells declare war on the very host that created them.
Normal cells grow, divide and die in an orderly fashion.
But a cancer cell is a cell that has gone astray. Its genetic material becomes altered, and it grows and divides into other cancerous cells, pushing healthy cells out of its path. The body cannot control the growth of these rebel cells, and they take on their own purpose and direction. Once started, cancer can grow around and through neighboring organs and tissues, blocking blood vessels and crowding other organs out of position. It can spread in another way, too, when cancerous cells break away from the original growth.