One of the primary functions of epithelial tissues is protection that’s equilavent to a flexible armor plating for the body. New cells are constantly growing to replenish older ones, and in doing so like the skin, a layer of keratinized cells act as an additional layer of protection. As the body’s first line of defense, the epithelium is also very sensitive to potential threats. http://www.what-is-cancer.com/
Which explains why 85% of all cancers originates from the epithelial tissues and cells when the immune system can’t fight off these enemy invaders. Epithelial cells all over the body are also vulnerable to this damage from variety of sources, and they can potentially develop cancers and abnormalities. Because they are designed to replicate rapidly, therefore, if an error in duplication arises it can spread to neighboring cells resulting in cancer.
Their are different types of epithelial cells: basal cell are found in the skin, squamous cell cover the surface of the mouth, skin and esophagus (airways). Adeno cell form the lining of all the glands, including the breast, bowel, stomach, ovaries, prostate, whereas, urothelial (transitional) cells lining the bladder. Sums up the list of cancers effected from the transition of the epithelial cells.
Most solid tumors will arise from epithelial cells which normally stick together in tightly bound sheets while providing structural foundations of many organs. In principle, epithelial cells lack the ability to escape those bonds and wriggle and jostle their way into nearby cells, tissues and other organs or even into the circulatory system.
Yet somehow cancerous epithelial cells also known as cancerous cells ~ do end up in other areas of the body, and the outcome is often dire strait. Metastatic tumors are responsible for the vast majority of cancer associated deaths. Over the past decade, accumulating evidence has shown that epithelial tumor cells undergo an important change transforms them into migratory mesenchymal cells.
While some researchers now believe this conversion known as epithelial – to – mesenchymal – transition, 0r EMT, does explain how epithelial tumor cells escape their primary residence in the breast, for instance and travels to the liver, lung or bone marrow et. cetera. recently, the role of EMT in cancer has come under even greater scrutiny.
According to Dr. Cedric Garland of the University of California, San Diego Moores Cancer Center in nearly all breast cancer patients. Vitamin D affects the structure of your epithelial cells, whereas, the glue like substance called E – cadherin. Comes apart if you don’t have adequate vitamin D and those cells do what they are programmed to do… go forth and multiply. Therefore, if the cell proliferation gets out control…. you may end up with cancer.
It’s amazing how quickly adequate levels of vitamin D can be restored by sunlight. Just 6 days of casual sunlight exposure without sun screen can make up for 49 days of no sunlight exposure. Body fat acts like a kind of storage battery for vitamin D. During periods of sunlight, vitamin D is stored in fat deposits and then released when sunlight is gone. Nevertheless, vitamin D deficiency is more common than you might expect.
Because of the evidence linking the process to the formation of so – called cancer stem cells, that’s explained by Dr. Suresh Mohla, associate director of NCI’s Division of Cancer Biology and program director of the DCB’s Tumor Micro Environment Network (TMEN) program. Cancer stem cells, he notes, have been strongly associated with resistance to treatment and disease recurrence. Because cancer stems cells multiple slower they’re are often disguised and untected by chemotherapeutic regimes.