There is no single symptom for cancer. The principal reason for this is that cancer can occur in any part of the body, and depending on where it occurs, symptoms can be presented in a certain way. So, it is hard to pin point one catch all symptom for cancer, and thorough diagnosis of cancer is never symptomatic.
However, certain things are common to the growth of many types of cancer. Pain that never goes away, a very constant pain is often associated with cancer. The pain can be deep inside the body, or peripherally; however, no other cause for the pain can be found by simple study. If you have an unidentifiable pain like this, it is important to consider cancer.
The other symptom often associated with cancer is a tumor. Tumors are fleshy growths within or outside the body. There can be benign tumors; growths that do not go through the 3 distinguishing characteristics of cancer – uncontrolled growth, invasion and metastasis. Almost everyone has a tumor or two somewhere in the body; but a malignant tumor is one which presents oncogenic symptoms of growth.
If you have a tumor that does not look right, and causes pain, it is important to test for cancer.
Cancer almost always requires a pathological evaluation, which often involves a biopsy. A biopsy is the extraction of a small amount of body material – often just a few cells – for examination under a microscope to look for cancerous cells. Some biopsies can be done right in a doctor’s office, others require anesthesia and surgery.
Once the biopsy is done, a pathologist conducts a histological examination of the cells. A biopsy indicates the kind of proliferation in the cell, the grade of metastasis, genetic anomalies that are present and may be causal to the cancer, and a host of other data.
Such data is important for prognosis, or the determination of the kinds of treatment that would be required to cure, contain or otherwise treat the cancer.
