Abstract
Cancer is a collective term for a group of diseases that are not easy to define due to their multicausal nature and the diversity of processes that can lead to their development in different parts of the body. Yet, there is a basic characteristic common to all varieties of cancer that is clearly rendered in the National Cancer Institute (2010) definition: “Cancer is a term used for diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control and are able to invade other tissues”. That is, cancerous cells have typically lost their ability to operate as functional components of a tissue, becoming rogue entities that proliferate out of control. More than 100 types of cancer have been already identified, but the list is likely to continue to grow in the future.
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Cordella, M., Poiani, A. (2014). Introduction. In: Behavioural Oncology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9605-2_1
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