Cancer Information: The Basics 
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| Terms that are on use on this site as well as general cancer-related words and definitions.
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| antigen | A antigen is a chemical substance on a foreign agent such as a type of bacteria or virus or cancer cell. Specialized lymphocytes recognize this chemical as being foreign and produce antibodies that attack that antigen. Cancer cells produce a weak antigenic response and are thus open to attack by this approach. The problem is that the immune system is basically overwhelmed when the cancerous tumors grow beyond just a few dozen cells. Research is ongoing in this area. |
| Glossary V2.0 | |
