Occurrence and course

Basically, any organ of the human body are affected by cancer. However, there are significant differences in frequency with age, gender, collective membership, geographic region, diet and related factors. In Germany cancers occur more frequently in institutions such as breast (women), prostate (men), lung and colon to.
Cancer is the heart and circulatory diseases in Germany the second most common cause of death. However, not every course of cancer is fatal, if timely treatment is started or the cancer occurs only in advanced age and then slowly grows. The present cure rate - calculated on all types of cancer - is on average 30-40 percent, but is very dependent on the type of cancer. As described in Cancer will be cured a patient of at least five years without relapse (relapse) survives. This definition of cure is problematic because many of the relapses occur at a later date. It therefore flows, many patients in a cancer-success statistics, die later of cancer.
The cancer manifests itself in various forms and diseases. For this reason, no general statements about life expectancy and chances of recovery are taken. There are currently about 100 different cancers known which differ in survival, treatment options and the tendency to form metastases in part, strong.
The incidence of most cancers increases significantly with age, so that you can also view cancer as a disease of aging on cell growth. Besides smoking, other carcinogenic pollutants, family history (assessment) and viral infections are the leading causes of cancer. The Nobel Prize winner Harald zur Hausen goes back a good 20 percent of cancers of infection (human papillomavirus (HPV), hepatitis B and C, Helicobacter pylori, EBV, human herpesvirus 8 (HHV-8), Human T-lymphotropic virus 1 (HTLV-1 ), certain parasites (bladder in the Delta) and Merkel cell polyoma-virus). [1] In Germany and the United States, this share is estimated to be significantly lower and was adopted by about 5 percent.
Cancer prevention and early detection, the cancer risk under certain circumstances (depending on the time of diagnosis of cancer and one for optimal age of the patients) are significantly reduced.
Cancer is not a disease of modern times. It is a very ancient evolutionary seen disease that can also affect plants and animals. The oldest findings provide cancer dinosaur bones. Our ancestors, as before, for example, the Australopithecus (4.2 to 2 million years of our era), had cancer. Cancers have accompanied mankind throughout the evolution. In the Ebers Papyrus from 1550 BC, the time cancer is mentioned.