Question: how do the cells mutate when someone gets cancer and what affects what type of cancer they get?

Rebecca Thompson answered on 13 Jun 2016:

What a brilliant question!

When we say cells ‘mutate’, we are generally talking about a change to the DNA instruction manual in cells, which then changes how the cell behaves (in cancer, the main change is it makes the cell divide uncontrollably and make more copies of itself). Mutations can be caused by lots of different things, at random (by accident) as the cell copies its DNA instruction manual to pass on as it divides into two cells, or because of external factors, like UV rays in sunlight (which is why its important you wear suncream!), or chemicals (like ones found in cigarettes when you smoke). The thing that caused the mutation can raise your risk of a particular cancer, for example if you are in the sun a lot, you will have increased risk of skin cancer because the UV rays hit the skin cells, while smoking increases risk of throat and lung cancer, because you inhale the chemicals.

You can get cancers in all the different tissues in your body. The type of cancer depends where the first cell that ‘goes wrong’ and turns into a cancer cell is. Once a cancer has formed, sometime this can spread to other parts of the body in what is called ‘metastatic’ cancer.

Hope that helps 🙂