Cancer and Tumor Terms

Cancer that occurs in both paired organs, such as both breasts or both ovaries.

This uncommon cancer develops within the tubes that carry bile from the liver to the intestine, and can arise inside or outside the liver.

Bladder cancer usually begins in the cells lining the bladder's interior, most often developing as urothelial carcinoma rather than the other, less common types.

A phase of chronic myelogenous leukemia in which tiredness, fever, and an enlarged spleen occur during the blastic phase, when more than 30% of the cells in the blood or bone marrow are blast cells…

A phase of chronic myelogenous leukemia in which 20% or more of the cells in the blood or bone marrow are blast cells (immature blood cells).

Bone cancer includes primary tumors that arise directly within bone tissue and secondary tumors that spread there from cancer elsewhere in the body.

This umbrella term spans several distinct diseases with different outlooks, so identifying the specific type is essential to understanding what it means.

Cancer that has spread from the original (primary) tumor to the bone marrow.

Cancer that has settled in bone, where it keeps the name of the organ it started in rather than the bone it now occupies.

Cancer in the brain has far more often arrived from elsewhere than started there, and that origin decides how it is treated.

A tumor in the part of the brain that connects to the spinal cord (the brain stem).

Inside a closed skull, even a growth that never spreads anywhere can do harm simply by taking up room.

Receptor testing turned one disease into several, since what a tumor responds to now shapes treatment more than its size does.

There are 2 types of breast carcinoma in situ: ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS).

Cancer that forms in tissues of the bronchi (large air passages in the lungs including those that lead to the lungs from the windpipe).

An older umbrella name for lung cancer arising in the airway lining, still met in pathology reports and textbooks.

A rare, fast-growing type of leukemia (blood cancer) in which too many white blood cells called B lymphocytes form in the blood and bone marrow.

Burkitt lymphoma is a fast growing B-cell cancer of the lymphatic system that occurs in distinct forms across different populations.

Not one disease but hundreds, grouped by the tissue they start in, and it is invasion and spread that separate them from harmless growths.

A substance that may be found in high amounts in the blood of patients with certain types of cancer, including ovarian cancer.