CANCER

The word cancer is rather misleading for, to most of us, it suggests a single disease. In fact the word ' 'cancer' is rather like the word 'infection' in that it simply denotes a type of problem. There are probably nearly as many different types of cancer as there are types of infection. This means, inevitability, that the types of treatment used, the prognoses and the causes will all vary too. We still don't know very much about cancer but we do know that skin cancer develops most commonly on areas of the body which are most frequently exposed to the sun, skin cancer is commoner among fair-skinned individuals, it is commoner in parts of the world where there is lots of sunshine, it is sometimes associated with the use of artificial sun lamps and chemicals of many different kinds.