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Israel Army Girl
Katie Kirkpatrick Godwin
Nomenclature The following closely related terms may be used to designate abnormal growths: Tumor: originally, it meant any abnormal swelling, lump or mass. In current English, however, the word tumor has become synonymous with neoplasm, specifically solid neoplasm. Note that some neoplasms, such as leukemia, do not form tumors. Neoplasm: the scientific term to describe an abnormal proliferation of genetically altered cells. Neoplasms can be benign or malignant:
Malignant neoplasm or malignant tumor: synonymous with cancer. Benign neoplasm or benign tumor: a tumor (solid neoplasm) that stops growing by itself, does not invade other tissues and does not form metastases. Invasive tumor is another synonym of cancer. The name refers to invasion of surrounding tissues. Pre-malignancy, pre-cancer or non-invasive tumor: A neoplasm that is not invasive but has the potential to progress to cancer (become invasive) if left untreated. These lesions are, in order of increasing potential for cancer, atypia, dysplasia and carcinoma in situ. The following terms can be used to describe a cancer: Screening: a test done on healthy people to detect tumors before they become apparent. A mammogram is a screening test.
Recurrence: new tumors that appear a the site of the original tumor after surgery. Metastasis: new tumors that appear far from the original tumor. Transformation: the concept that a low-grade tumor transforms to a high-grade tumor over time. Example: Richter’s transformation. Chemotherapy: treatment with drugs. Radiation therapy: treatment with radiations. Adjuvant therapy: treatment, either chemotherapy or radiation therapy, given after surgery to kill the remaining cancer cells. Prognosis: the probability of cure after the therapy. It is usually expressed as a probability of survival five years after diagnosis. Alternatively, it can be expressed as the number of years when 50% of the patients are still alive. Both numbers are derived from statistics accumulated with hundreds of similar patients to give a Kaplan-Meier curve.
Cancers are classified by the type of cell that resembles the tumor and, therefore, the tissue presumed to be the origin of the tumor. Examples of general categories include: Carcinoma: Malignant tumors derived from epithelial cells. This group represents the most common cancers, including the common forms of breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer. Sarcoma: Malignant tumors derived from connective tissue, or mesenchymal cells. Lymphoma and leukemia: Malignancies derived from hematopoietic (blood-forming) cells Germ cell tumor: Tumors derived from totipotent cells. In adults most often found in the testicle and ovary; in fetuses, babies, and young children most often found on the body midline, particularly at the tip of the tailbone; in horses most often found at the poll (base of the skull). Blastic tumor: A tumor (usually malignant) which resembles an immature or embryonic tissue. Many of these tumors are most common in children.
Benign tumors are named using -oma as a suffix with the organ name as the root. For instance, a benign tumor of the smooth muscle of the uterus is called leiomyoma (the common name of this frequent tumor is fibroid). Unfortunately, some cancers also use the -oma suffix, examples being melanoma and seminoma.
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