Can you explain about how cancer(e.g skin cancer) leads to death?

Cancer is a tumor that spreads and causes abnormal cell growth. Do you know step-by-step towards death?

Skin cancer affects the skin only, but it doesn't attack other vital organs. If the skin gets damaged, how can the interior vital organs get damaged? If the skin is bruised and scratched, then it is minor. But if interior organs get bruised, then it's fatal.

Hello,

I agree with the previous answers. There is a bit more to say, maybe.

There are 3 types of skin cancer, - (1) 'squamous-cell,' (2) 'basal-cell' (or 'rodent ulcer'), and (3) 'melanoma.'

Melanoma and squamous-cell, spread by small bits of the tumour getting detached and carried round to new parts of the body. They set up and grow there. Melanoma is much more prone to do this early on, than squamous-cell is.

Basal-cell, or rodent ulcer, spreads only by digging itself deeper and deeper into the body. It can spread from the skin of the face, down through the muscles and bone and finally into the brain, if it is neglected. Hence its other name 'rodent.'

I hope this is of some help,

Best wishes,

Belliger (retired uk gp)

Most skin cancers don't kill because they stay confined to the skin. Melanoma on the other hand is a type of skin cancer that easily metastizes to other organs. Basically it starts on the top layer of skin and the cancer continually infects other cells moving deeper down the skin layers. Eventually it moves through the skin and infects the lymph nodes. From the lymph nodes it spreads to other organs in the body. At that point the cancer begins to destroy cells not just in the skin but also in the lymphatic system and all the major organs it spread to. If it is not treated, and many times even if it is treated at this point, it continues to spread and infect more and more organs killing more and more cells and destroying more and more tissue until the person's immune system is shot, their organs fail and death follows shortly behind.

Metastatic cancer does not remain in the location where it starts . . that is the definition of cancer and why it is so deadly. It is not true that skin cancer only affects the skin . . the skin is a massive organ . . and the cancer only begins on the skin, but can than spread. Skin cancer does not remain on the skin, once it metastasizes it can send hundreds of microscopic malignant cells into the blood stream or lymphatic system and spread internally or externally anywhere. Melanoma can grow down beyond the skin and spread to all the internal organs . .and eventually overwhelm the body systems that will lead to death.