The hallmark of a malignant cancer is the uncontrolled clonal proliferation and spread of abnormal cancer cells.

Cancer is thus our most common genetic disease but only rarely is it inherited. Most cancers are sporadic and arise in a particular tissue such as the colon, breast, lung, or skin when normal cells acquire mutations in one or more oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes. The acquisition of multiple new genetic changes is what sets the cancer cell apart from the normal cells in its surrounding tissues.

The cancer cell develops when a normal cell in an organ or tissue acquires the capacity to divide in an uncontrolled fashion. Over time the developing cancer cell starts to multiply in a clonal fashion, begins to appear different (anaplastic or undifferentiated), and progressively acquires other characteristics, such as the capacity metastasise while losing cell-to-cell adhesion. The continued acquisition of new...