Cancer and Tumor Terms
Cancer types, tumors, staging language, and concepts used in oncology. Browse definitions and meanings below.
What is oncology?
Oncology is the branch of medicine concerned with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Its vocabulary describes what a growth is made of, how far it has spread, and how it responds over time.
Several distinctions in this vocabulary carry real weight. Benign and malignant describe how a growth behaves rather than how large it is, and staging and grading measure different things: how far a cancer has spread, and how abnormal its cells look under a microscope.
Terms in this topic
Alphabetical order-
A phase of chronic myelogenous leukemia in which the disease is progressing.
-
Immature blood cells fill the marrow, so the illness comes from what is missing rather than from what is present.
-
An aggressive (fast-growing) type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many lymphoblasts (immature white blood cells) are found in the blood and bone marrow.
-
An aggressive (fast-growing) type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many lymphoblasts (immature white blood cells) are found in the blood and bone marrow.
-
An aggressive (fast-growing) disease in which too many myeloblasts (immature white blood cells that are not lymphoblasts) are found in the bone marrow and blood.
-
The damage comes less from the tumor itself than from what stops being made once the marrow fills with blasts.
-
An aggressive (fast-growing) disease in which too many myeloblasts (immature white blood cells that are not lymphoblasts) are found in the bone marrow and blood.
-
The name describes what the tumor is made of rather than where it grew, which is why it appears in reports from so many organs.
-
An uncommon gland cancer known for creeping along nerves and for returning many years after treatment.
-
A type of cancer that contains two types of cells: squamous cells (thin, flat cells that line certain organs) and gland-like cells.
-
Cancer starting in the adrenal glands is rare, while cancer found in them is not, because they attract spread from elsewhere.
-
A rare cancer that forms in the outer layer of tissue of the adrenal gland (a small organ on top of each kidney that makes steroid hormones, adrenaline, and noradrenaline to control heart rate…
-
A rare cancer of the adrenal gland's outer layer that often announces itself through the hormones it releases unchecked.
-
An aggressive (fast-growing) type of T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma caused by the human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1).
-
Cancer that has spread to other places in the body and usually cannot be cured or controlled with treatment.
-
A type of lymphoma that grows and spreads quickly and has severe symptoms.
-
Certain cancer types that are more likely to occur in people who are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
-
A cancer vaccine made with a form of the canarypox virus that does not cause disease in people.
-
A soft tissue tumor that is most common in older children and teenagers.
-
Amelanotic melanoma is a form of skin cancer that lacks the dark pigment typical of melanoma, often appearing pink or red instead.