Is Cancer technically a disease?

Some cancers are linked to viruses (such as cervical cancer caused by HPV), so those would definitely be diseases. I actually believe most cancers have external causes, so they would be diseases as well. Really, it depends on which definition of disease and disorder you look at.

“Disease” has become a generic term for most any pathological condition. A carcinoma is definately pathological.

It is an byproduct of irritation.

The notion that all diseases are associated with infectious agents is incorrect. Any pathological condition or abnormality of function is a disease. Cancer is most definitely and unambiguously a “disease”.

There are various definitions for disease. The most usual ones, I think, do not require an outside agent like a virus or bacteria. The wikipedia article on disease, for example, starts with “A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune diseases.”

We learned, years ago, that disease was exactly what it what the word is, dis ease, lack of ease. So cancer would certainly qualify.

Technically, there are many different kinds and causes of cancers, so it is not just a single thing, however, disease is the general catch all word of most maladies that affect us.

The reason I ask is because categorizing something as a disease seems to lead one to focusing on a medicine to cure the disease or keeping those with the disease away so you don’t catch the disease. That response however is not helpful in dealing with allergies, for instance, which are actually an immune disorder. If we’re mis-characterizing cancer by calling it a disease, it seems it might tend to keep us from more helpful therapies.

@GeorgeGee The way the medical industry categorizes it and the way the general population do could be very different. Now I see why you said technically.