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Malignancy (from Latin male 'badly' and -gnus 'born') is the tendency of a medical condition to become progressively worse; the term is most familiar as a characterization of cancer.
[3] [4] Cancer can be difficult to diagnose because its signs and symptoms are often nonspecific, meaning they may be general phenomena that do not point directly to a specific disease process. [5] In medicine, a sign is an objective piece of data that can be measured or observed, as in a high body temperature (fever), a rash, or a bruise. [6]
Tumor is also not synonymous with cancer. While cancer is by definition malignant, a tumor can be benign, precancerous, or malignant. [citation needed] The terms mass and nodule are often used synonymously with tumor. Generally speaking, however, the term tumor is used generically, without reference to the physical size of the lesion. [3]
The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (ónkos), meaning "tumor", "volume" or "mass". [2] Oncology is concerned with: The diagnosis of any cancer in a person (pathology) Therapy (e.g. surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other modalities) Follow-up of cancer patients after successful treatment
A neoplasm or tumor is a group of cells that have undergone unregulated growth and will often form a mass or lump, but may be distributed diffusely. [27] [28] All tumor cells show the six hallmarks of cancer. These characteristics are required to produce a malignant tumor. They include: [29] Cell growth and division absent the proper signals
Carcinoma is a malignancy that develops from epithelial cells. [1] Specifically, a carcinoma is a cancer that begins in a tissue that lines the inner or outer surfaces of the body, and that arises from cells originating in the endodermal, mesodermal [2] or ectodermal germ layer during embryogenesis.
By staining the cells from a biopsy, a pathologist can determine whether the tumor is an adenocarcinoma or some other type of cancer. Adenocarcinomas can arise in many tissues of the body owing to the ubiquitous nature of glands within the body, and, more fundamentally, to the potency of epithelial cells.
When one tumor is present, it is called a plasmacytoma; more than one is called multiple myeloma. [10] Multiple myeloma is diagnosed based on blood or urine tests finding abnormal antibody proteins (often using electrophoretic techniques revealing the presence of a monoclonal spike in the results, termed an m-spike), bone marrow biopsy finding ...