What is the difference between a benign tumor and cancer?
A benign tumor is not cancerous – it grows slowly. If you remove it, it doesn’t return. However, if it is in the wrong place (like deep in the brain), it can still kill. Cancer is a malignant tumor, which invades tissues aggressively. It may only invade locally, or it may metastasize and spread to areas far away. The most malignant types grow rapidly, spread or metastasized to other organs before the original tumor is detected. So a malignant tumor of the skin that is only locally invasive can have a better outlook than a benign tumor of the brain. Cancers are now “staged”, or classified into degrees of malignancy. The mild types have a more hopeful outlook than the severe types. What causes cancer? There is nothing that will cause cancer in all animals. If an animal has certain genes, it will be more likely to get certain types of cancer. The longer an animal is exposed to a carcinogen (cancer-causing substance), the more likely the animal will get cancer. The more cancer-causing fact
