Cancer (synonym: malignant tumor disease; ICD-10-GM C80.-: Malignant neoplasm without indication of location) is a collective term for malignant neoplasms (malignant neoplasms):
- Epithelial tumors (carcinomas).
- Mesenchymal tumors (sarcomas)
- Hemoblastoses (malignant neoplasms of the hematopoietic system).
Their common feature is the uncontrolled growth of tumor cells that invasively displace healthy tissue and grow destructively (destructive). Due to changes in DNA (genetic information), the cell may develop additional characteristics that complicate the treatment of tumor disease. These include the ability to survive in the absence of oxygen, to develop its own blood supply (angiogenesis) or to metastasize (form daughter tumors) and to settle in foreign tissues such as bone, lung or brain. It is this ability that gives cancer its lethal potency: 90 % of all tumor patients whose disease is lethal die not from the primary tumor but from its metastases or from secondary diseases caused by metastasis. Very rarely, there are also spontaneous remissions. They occur only in about 1: 50,000-100,000 cases. Spontaneous remission is defined as a complete or partial remission (regression) of a malignant (malignant) tumor in the absence of all therapies or with therapies for which no proof of efficacy has yet been established. In principle, any organ of the human body can be affected by tumor disease, but there are significant differences in frequency by age, sex, geographic region, dietary habits, etc.
Epidemiology
Tumor diseases are the second most common cause of death in Germany after cardiovascular disease. Mammary carcinoma (breast cancer) is the most common tumor disease in women, and prostate carcinoma (prostate cancer) is the most common in men. Tumor deaths, gender-specific.
| Women | Men |
| Mammary carcinoma (breast cancer) | Bronchial carcinoma (lung cancer) |
| Bronchial carcinoma | Colorectal carcinoma |
| Colorectal carcinomas (cancer of the colon and rectum) | Prostate carcinoma |
| Pancreatic cancer | Gastric carcinoma |
| Gastric carcinoma | Pancreatic carcinoma (cancer of the pancreas) |
| Ovarian carcinoma (ovarian cancer) | Renal cell carcinoma |
| Leukemias | Urinary bladder cancer |
| Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma | Oral cavity/revenge tumors |
| Corpus carcinoma (synonyms: endometrial carcinoma, uterine carcinoma) cancer of the endometrium; cancer of the uterine body) | Leukemias (blood cancer) |
| Renal cell carcinoma | Esophageal carcinoma (cancer of the esophagus) |
| Urinary bladder cancer | Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma |
| Cervical carcinoma (cancer of the cervix) | Laryngeal tumors |
Course and prognosis: On average, approximately 30-40% of all tumor patients are cured of their disease. A patient is said to be cured if he or she survives for at least five years without recurrence. This definition is considered problematic because many recurrences occur at a later stage. Thus, many patients are included in the success statistics who later die from their tumors. In approximately 90% of cases, locoregional therapy (“steel and beam”), i.e. primary surgery and, if necessary, additional (locoregional) radiatio (radiation therapy), is performed. Note: 18.4 percent of tumor patients had prior tumor disease without recurrence (recurrence of disease) or late metastases (formation of tumor metastases years to decades after treatment of a malignancy):
- At ages older than 65 years, melanoma (36.9 percent) was the most common second tumor. Patients with a history of tumor disease had patients with leukemia (36.9 percent), tumor disease of bones and joints (34.0 percent), and bladder or other urinary organs (32.5 percent).
- Younger patients with a history of tumor disease were more likely to have leukemia (24.8 percent), anorectal cancer (cancer affecting the anus and rectum/rectum 18.2 percent), cervical, vaginal, and vulvar cancer/cancer of the external genital organs of women (15.0 percent), and cancer of the lungs and respiratory organs (14.6 percent) as a secondary disease.
