Cancer and Tumor Terms

The occurrence of a larger-than-expected number of cases of cancer within a group of people in a geographic area over a period of time.

The Cancer Information Service is the National Cancer Institute's link to the public, interpreting and explaining research findings in a clear and understandable manner, and providing personalized…

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…

Cancer vaccines fall into two categories, preventive vaccines against cancer-causing viruses and therapeutic vaccines that train the immune system to attack existing tumors.

Because cancer is the endpoint of a long sequence, no single exposure can usually be named as the cause of one person's tumor.

A slow neuroendocrine tumor named for looking less dangerous than cancer, a description that has not aged well.

Naming a tumor a carcinoma answers only the first question, since the subtype and the organ decide nearly everything that follows.

Abnormal cells that look like cancer under the microscope but have not yet crossed the boundary that would let them spread.

A case in which cancer cells are found in the body, but the place where the cells first started growing (the origin or primary site) cannot be determined.

One tumor wearing two faces, and the evidence now says both faces grew from a single ancestor cell rather than two cancers colliding.

A rare cancer that develops in tissues of the heart.

Cancer that has spread from the original (primary) tumor to the central nervous system (CNS).

A tumor of the central nervous system, including brain stem glioma, craniopharyngioma, medulloblastoma, and meningioma.

Years usually pass between the first abnormal cells and an invasive tumor, and that long window is what screening exploits.

A solid lump made of leukemia cells growing outside the marrow, which can appear before anything abnormal shows up in the blood.

Location drives almost everything here, since a tumor deep inside the liver behaves and is assessed quite differently from one near the intestine.

The name is precise, but it is not always used precisely, and some writing applies it loosely to any cancer of the bile ducts.

Chondrosarcoma is a cancer that forms in cartilage, most often affecting the pelvis, ribs, or the ends of long bones.

A rare midline bone tumor grown from embryonic leftovers, slow to develop but stubbornly local and prone to returning.

A type of cancer that grows into the muscular wall of the uterus.