Your cells have started to develop cancer

[angelsrolls]

Hello,
Do the following sentences sound natural?

1. Your cells have started to develop cancer.
2. Your cells are getting infected with cancer.
3. Your cells are getting affected by cancer.

What other ways of saying this are there?

 

[emsr2d2]

Bear in mind that I'm not medically trained but I have heard that a person can have "pre-cancerous cells" which serve as a warning that the person might develop cancer, but it doesn't mean that they (or the cells) have "started to develop" cancer. Don't use "infected by cancer" - cancer isn't infectious.

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to indicate. Is this something you think a doctor would say after a blood test or a scan of some kind?

 

[angelsrolls]

I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to indicate. Is this something you think a doctor would say after a blood test or a scan of some kind?

Yes.

 

[andrewg927]

Then you would hear "You have cancer" or "You have pre-cancerous cells".

 

[andrewg927]

3. Your cells are getting affected by cancer.

Your cells do get affected by cancer but that is after you have cancerous cells already. Then the cells multiply.

 

[angelsrolls]

Cancer is not infectious, so it cannot be transmitted from one person to another. But if cancerous cells multiply, can we conclude that the cells are getting infected with cancer?

 

[emsr2d2]

I don't think so, no. Cancer isn't an infection in any usable sense of the word. If it were, it might be susceptible to antibiotics and it's not. The cancer cells don't "infect each other". The cancer cells spread and multiply.

 

[GoesStation]

Cancer is a multiplication of damaged cells which can overwhelm the undamaged cells in the body. No cells become infected with it; the body's defense mechanisms just can't deal with the onslaught of cancerous cells.