Cancer and Tumor Terms

A fast-growing tumor of placental cells that reaches the lungs early yet responds remarkably well to chemotherapy.

A malignant, fast-growing tumor that develops from trophoblastic cells (cells that help an embryo attach to the uterus and help form the placenta).

A rare type of cancer that occurs in the ventricles of the brain.

A disease in which too many eosinophils (a type of white blood cell) are found in the bone marrow, blood, and other tissues.

A slowly progressing disease in which too many white blood cells (not lymphocytes) are made in the bone marrow.

Slow growing blood cancers whose cells mature far enough to function, which is why they are so often found by accident.

This slow-progressing blood cancer results from an acquired genetic change that causes the bone marrow to overproduce white blood cells.

A slowly progressing type of myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative disease in which too many myelomonocytes (a type of white blood cell) are in the bone marrow, crowding out other normal blood cells…

A disease in which too many neutrophils (a type of white blood cell) are found in the blood.

Melanoma that is found only in the epidermis (outer layer of skin).

Melanoma that has spread from the epidermis (outer layer of skin) down into the papillary dermis (the thin top layer of the dermis).

Melanoma that has spread down through the papillary dermis (the thin top layer of the dermis) but not into the reticular dermis (the thick bottom layer of the dermis).

Melanoma that has spread down into the reticular dermis (the thick bottom layer of the dermis).

Melanoma that has spread down into the subcutaneous tissue (tissue beneath the skin).

The most common type of Hodgkin lymphoma, which is a cancer of the immune system.

A description of what the cells look like on a slide, applied to tumors that arise in several unrelated organs.

A soft tissue tumor that begins in a tendon (tough, fibrous, cord-like tissue that connects muscle to bone or to another structure).

A rare type of kidney cancer, in which the inside of the cells look clear when viewed under a microscope.

Cells that look mature and behave uselessly accumulate for years, which is why a diagnosis often arrives long before any treatment does.

A marrow disorder sitting between two families of blood disease, defined by a stubbornly high count of one white cell type.