- "Staging is the process of finding out how much cancer is in a person’s body and where it’s located" (cancer.org).
- Staging is important in determining what treatments are necessary and the patient's prognosis (though the cancer stage isn't the only factor).

The children of this node will focus on:
- TNM Staging
- Other staging systems 
- When is cancer staged (clinical stage, surgical stage, post-therapy stage)
- Assigning overall stage (tends to be from Stage I to IV)

Cancer Stages

- Supportive care focuses on alleviating symptoms and improving the quality of life in patients with life-threatening chronic diseases. As a (good) side effect, this sometimes improves survival rates.
- As shown below, palliative care is supportive care for patients with late-stage disease, and hospice care is palliative care for patients near/at the end of life.

Supportive Care

Surgery, radiotherapy, cytotoxic chemotherapy, molecularly targed therapy, and immunotherapy are the pillars of cancer care.

Cancer | Standard Treatments & Pillars of Cancer Care

Treatment Resistance in Cancer

- Traditional Approach
- Pallative Care (focuses on managing symptoms)
- Precision or Personalized Medicine
- Off-label Drug Use
- Biosimilar drugs
- Clinical Trials
- Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Cancer Treatment | Treatment Approaches / Aspects

- Treatment resistance
- Types of treatment (e.g., surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy)
- Treatment approaches/aspects (e.g., palliative care, precision medicine)
- Other treatments (e.g., hyperthermia, complementary medicine)

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

- Cancer is a term that refers to a collection of diseases in which some of the body's cells divide uncontrollably and invade surrounding tissues. 
- Cancer can metastasize, i.e., spread to other parts of the body. Metastatic cancer is hard to treat and tends to be fatal. Most cancer deaths are caused by metastasis.

This node should be a relation node, but I can't delete it since it's a root node of the "cancer" tree and it has two upvotes.


Cancer

American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)

Mayo Clinic | Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER)

- Many cancer treatments work by suppressing rapidly-dividing cells. Note that cancer cells divide rapidly, but some healthy cells (e.g., white blood cells) also divide rapidly. Hence, the immune system weakens, making the patient more likely to get infected and experience severe COVID-19 complications.

COVID-19 and Cancer Comorbidity

- Note: Having some cancer symptoms/signs doesn't mean one has cancer. Also, many cancers don't have clear signs/symptoms, especially during the early and middle stages.

General Signs/Symptoms of Cancer
- Unexplained weight loss
- Fever
- Fatigue
- Pain
- Skin changes

Signs/Symptoms of Specific Cancers
- Changes in bowel/bladder functions
- Sores that don't heal
- White patches in mouth or on the tongue
- Unusual bleeding/discharge
- Thickening or lump in part(s) of the body
- Persistent Indigestion or swallowing difficulties
- Persistent, "nagging cough or hoarseness"
- Other major changes in how one feels or one's body functions

Signs and Symptoms of Cancer

Cancer Treatment

User-Created Sources
- Cancer Tutorial | Sai Chengalvala

Primary Sources
- PeeWeeToms

General 
- Alliance for Aging Research
- American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)
- American Cancer Society
- Cancer.Net
- Demystifying Medicine
- Doc Unlock
- HealthCareInsider
- Healthcare Triage
- Mayo Clinic | Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER)
- MD Anderson Cancer CEnter
- NIH - National Cancer Institute
- Rogel Cancer Center | Michigan Medicine

Journals Used
- The Lancet 
- The Lancet Oncology
- Nature Reviews | Clinical Oncology

*Note: This list excludes the references that are only used for the node "COVID-19 and Cancer Comorbidity" and its children. If I include them here, this list will get too crowded and hence will become less useful.

Cancer | References Used

According to the American Cancer Society (original source) and https://cancer80.weebly.com/ (secondary source), 
- In the USA, 1 in every 3 people will get cancer at some point in their lives, and cancer causes 1 in every 5 deaths. 
- Most of us will have a parent, sibling, relative, or friend who eventually dies from cancer.
- Cancer takes a financial, emotional, and psychological toll on patients and caregivers.

Impact of Cancer

According to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR),
- 4 in every 10 cancer cases are preventable.
- Tobacco smoking (19%), excess body weight (8%), alcohol (6%), UV radiation (5%), poor diet (5%), infections (4%), and sedentary lifestyles (3%) are the main preventable risk factors for cancer.
- Numbers in parentheses indicate % of US cases in adults age >30 attributable to the indicated risk factors.

The above content is copied verbatim from Venkata Chengalvala's website https://cancer80.weebly.com/prevention.html.

Preventable Causes of Cancer

Financial toxicity is when patients struggle with the severe financial burden of cancer treatments. It causes severe distress -- sometimes more than the cancer itself -- even pushing many patients to skip treatment.

Cancer | Financial Toxicity

Cancer health disparities are differences among populations in their treatment and diagnosis of cancer. This is due to social, environmental, and economic disadvantages. 


Cancer Disparities 

Mutant HTT (huntingtin) directly interacts with p53, a tumor suppressor whose mutation is responsible for breast cancers, in mice and flies. Although not always, the phosphorylation of HTT can also induce neuro protectiveness in individuals with Huntington’s and can help regulate cell differentiation and localization. Overall, there is 80% less rate of cancer amongst people with Huntington's than the normal population.

Connection Between Cancer and Huntington's

Cancer forms in the cells of the breasts. Breast cancer can occur in women and rarely in men. Symptoms of breast cancer include a lump in the breast, bloody discharge from the nipple, and changes in the shape or texture of the nipple or breast.

Learn Before

Related

Learn After