Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs)

Your doctor may order a test for circulating tumor cells (CTCs) to help guide your cancer care.

One of the major challenges in treating cancer is getting “all” of the cancer, including the parts we cannot see. Even if surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation removes all traces of known cancer, there is still a risk of the cancer returning, often in a distant location in the body. This may occur as a result of CTCs.

Circulating tumor cells were first found in the blood under the microscope nearly 150 years ago. They are cancer cells from the primary tumor that escaped into the bloodstream to circulate around the body. As a result, these cells can serve as seeds for new areas of cancer to grow in distant organs. This is known asmetastasis.

Not all CTCs have the ability to land and establish a new metastasis in a distant organ; some may remain dormant (inactive) or be controlled by the immune system for years, sometimes forever.

Read more: Circulating Tumor Cells (CTCs)

Source: jamanetwork

Esophageal Cancer

Overview

Esophageal cancer starts at the inside lining of the esophagus and spreads outward through the other layers as it grows. The two most common forms of esophageal cancer are named for the type of cells that become malignant:

• Squamous cell carcinoma: Cancer that forms in squamous cells, the thin, flat cells lining the esophagus. This cancer is most often found in the upper and middle part of the esophagus, but can occur anywhere along the esophagus. This is also called epidermoid carcinoma.
• Adenocarcinoma: Cancer that begins in glandular (secretory) cells. Glandular cells in the lining of the esophagus produce and release fluids such as mucus. Adenocarcinomas usually form in the lower part of the esophagus, near the stomach.

The National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program estimates that some 16,980 people in the United States will be diagnosed with esophageal cancer and 15,590 will die of the disease in 2015. The average five year survival rate is just 17.9 percent.

Smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, and Barrett esophagus can increase the risk of developing esophageal cancer. Other risk factors include older age, being male, and being African-American.

Read more: Esophageal Cancer

The esophagus and stomach are part of the upper gastrointestinal (digestive) system.

Video link: Esophageal Cancer

Source: aacrfoundation

What is Cancer?

A Collection of Related Diseases

Cancer is the name given to a collection of related diseases. In all types of cancer, some of the body’s cells begin to divide without stopping and spread into surrounding tissues.

Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells. Normally, human cells grow and divide to form new cells as the body needs them. When cells grow old or become damaged, they die, and new cells take their place.

When cancer develops, however, this orderly process breaks down. As cells become more and more abnormal, old or damaged cells survive when they should die, and new cells form when they are not needed. These extra cells can divide without stopping and may form growths called tumors.

Many cancers form solid tumors, which are masses of tissue. Cancers of the blood, such as leukemias, generally do not form solid tumors.

Cancerous tumors are malignant, which means they can spread into, or invade, nearby tissues. In addition, as these tumors grow, some cancer cells can break off and travel to distant places in the body through the blood or the lymph system and form new tumors far from the original tumor.

Read more: What is Cancer?

Normal cells may become cancer cells.

Source: cancer.gov