Warning signs and symptoms
Besides understanding the risk factors, it is also important to go through the most common signs and symptoms of cancer to stay on guard. Indeed, cancer behaves differently depending on the affected tissue, but there is usually a pattern that most types of cancer follow. Here’s a list of signs and symptoms to describe this pattern:
1. Weakness and muscle loss
Patients with cancer often feel unwell in a general condition known as malaise. These patients may feel that something is wrong but can’t point out precisely the exact reason, especially in the earliest stages of the disease. In later stages, this malaise slowly transforms into muscle weakness, and as the disease progresses, the patient starts losing his or her muscle mass. This leads to further muscle weakness and affects the quality of life.
Muscle loss and weakness are a part of a wasting syndrome in cancer known as cachexia, including other symptoms listed in this article. It usually appears in a late stage of the disease, when the cancer tumor has already grown and could be spreading to other tissues.