Laboratory, Pathology and Biomarker Terms

A pathologist's word for tumor cells so poorly formed that the tissue they grew out of can no longer be recognized.

A laboratory label from a tissue sample, marking cells that carry the docking site androgens use to send growth signals.

The mildest abnormal result on a cervical screening test, and usually a prompt for a virus test rather than for treatment.

A raised result announces that cells somewhere have been damaged without saying which cells, which is why it is never read alone.

A pathologist's word for cells that look wrong under the microscope without looking wrong enough to be cancer.

Not cancer, but not reassuring either, and what it means depends heavily on which organ the sample came from.

A marker of raised risk in both breasts rather than a lesion that becomes cancer where it sits.

Free antibody light chains spilling into the urine, and the reason a reassuring dipstick reading can sit on top of heavy protein loss.

Any measurable signal from the body that stands in for something harder to observe directly.

Carcinoembryonic antigen is a blood protein used as a tumor marker, most established for monitoring colorectal cancer after treatment.

The laboratory craft of keeping living cells growing outside the body, which depends more on excluding contamination than on feeding them.

A shape rather than an event: the cell was never cut, and the folded outline is simply what a pathologist reports seeing.

Growing two cell types side by side, because a cell studied in isolation answers only half of the question.

A living cell kept and multiplied outside the body, where it can be watched, treated and counted in ways a person cannot be.

Cytology is the microscopic examination of individual cells, commonly used to screen for abnormal or cancerous changes such as in a Pap test.

Pathologists grade this finding from mild to severe, and the grade, not the label alone, carries most of its meaning.

A number on a blood report rather than something a person feels, and its size shapes how far the search for a cause goes.

The most common receptor result in breast cancer, and the one that opens the door to hormone-blocking treatment taken over years.

A negative result narrows the options rather than worsening them outright, and it is the first of the three markers behind the triple-negative label.

An old, inexpensive blood test that reports something is wrong somewhere without saying what or where.