Tumor Cells: What You Need to Know?
What is the composition of tumor cells?
Tumor cell parenchyma is a tumor. The tumor tissue consists of two parts: the parenchyma and the interstitial. Tumor consists of tumor cells, which is the main component of the tumor and has tissue-specific specificity. Tumor is an oncology term. It determines the biological characteristics of the tumor and the specificity of each tumor. Generally, the tissue origin of various tumors is identified according to the parenchymal morphology of the tumor, and the classification, naming and histological diagnosis of the tumor are performed, and the benign and malignant tumors and the malignant degree of the tumor are determined according to the degree of differentiation and the degree of heterotypic formation.
What are the characteristics of tumor cells?
Tumor cells have three distinct basic features: immortality, mobility, and loss of contact inhibition. In addition, tumor cells have many physiological, biochemical, and morphological features that are different from normal cells. Similar to other diseases, the diagnosis of tumors is based on medical history and physical examination as the most basic and important diagnostic tools. Physical examination includes X-ray examination, ultrasound examination, endoscopy, histological biopsy, blood examination, etc. Here we mainly talk about tumor markers.
What is a tumor marker?
A tumor marker refers to a chemical substance produced by a tumor tissue that reflects the presence of the tumor itself. It can be used for the diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic observation of tumors.
They are classified as the following categories:
- Oncofetal proteins, such as alpha-fetoprotein, carcinoembryonic antigen;
- Tumor-associated antigens, (such as CA19–9, CA125);
- Enzymes, such as dehydrogenation of lactate Enzyme, neuron-specific enolase, prostatic acid phosphatase;
- Special plasma proteins (such as β2-macroglobulin, this week protein);
- Hormones (hormone), such as calcitonin, chorionic gonadotropin, adrenocorticotropic hormone;
In addition, proto-oncogenes, tumor suppressor genes and their products are also increasingly used as tumor markers. The use of tumor markers for the determination of tumors has been clinically used for many years and has served many roles in clinical diagnosis and therapeutic observation. In order to improve the accuracy of diagnosis, several related markers are often combined into a combined marker group in the clinic, and a certain tumor is detected at the same time.
How to treat tumors?
There are two viewpoints for treating tumors. One is to remove all or all of the tumor cells in the patient, so that the tumor does not recur in the survival period; the second is to change the characteristics of the cancer cells, so that the course is slowed down or even Stop completely. The conventional methods of tumor treatment include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.