Cancer and Oncology Terms

Tobacco smoke drives most cases, yet the disease also arises in people who never smoked, usually as adenocarcinoma.

Cancer that has traveled to the lung from somewhere else, keeping the identity of the organ it started in.

A substance that is being studied in the treatment of cancer using photodynamic therapy.

A drug used alone or with another drug to treat certain types of non-small cell lung cancer and malignant pleural mesothelioma.

A substance that is being studied as a treatment for cancer.

A substance being studied in the treatment of certain types of cancer, including non-Hodgkin lymphoma, breast, colon, lung, ovarian, and prostate.

A substance being studied in the treatment of cancer.

A substance being studied in the treatment of osteoporosis and breast cancer.

Removing a block of nodes tells surgeons how far a cancer has traveled, at the cost of the drainage those nodes provided.

The use of dyes and radioactive substances to identify lymph nodes that may contain tumor cells.

Taking out lymph nodes to learn whether cancer has reached them, an operation now used far more sparingly than it once was.

A type of cancer that begins in the cells that line lymph vessels.

The use of dyes and radioactive substances to identify lymph nodes that may contain tumor cells.

An aggressive (fast-growing) type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in which too many lymphoblasts (immature white blood cells) are found in the lymph nodes and the thymus gland.

One name covers two diseases that differ in nearly everything except the cell they come from: pace, age and urgency.

A type of cancer that begins in the tissues covering the nasopharynx (the upper part of the throat behind the nose).

A white blood cell that is stimulated in a laboratory to kill tumor cells.

Dozens of separate diseases sit under this one word, some watched for years without treatment and others needing care within days.

A serious problem that may occur in lymphoma.

A serious problem that may occur in lymphoma.