Paediatric cancer in Malta

Abstract

The illness we call cancer has extraordinarily diverse features including its causation, underlying pathology, clinical symptoms, therapeutic response, and outcome or chance of cure. It is a collection of many disorders of cell and tissue function that have one special biological property in common - the territorial expansion of a mutant clone. Cancer develops as a chromosomal gene disorder in single cells. That cell or those cells with the right mutation or combination of mutations will form the winning clone that will acquire the ability to proliferate uncontrollably and spread locally and distantly in spite of the body’s natural defence mechanisms against such rogue cells.