Important Breast cancer terms You Need To Be Familiar With

It is a little difficult to flow or understand health personnel’s when they begin to reel out their terms or jargons when it come to breast cancer related issues. This write-up is intended to water down all the related terms associated with breast cancer; Happy reading:

• Adenocarcinoma: Malignant tumor originating in glandular (Relating to or affecting or functioning as a gland) epithelium (Membranous tissue covering internal organs and other internal surfaces of the body). This is a type of cancer that starts in glandular tissue (tissue that makes and secretes a substance).

• Carcinoma: Any malignant tumor derived from epithelial tissue; one of the four major types of cancer. This term is employed to identify a cancer that begins in the lining layer of organs such as the breast. At least 80% of all cancers are carcinomas, and almost all breast cancers are carcinomas.

• Invasive (infiltrating) carcinoma: An invasive carcinoma is a state of cancerous attack or invasion that has already penetrated deep and beyond the layer of cells where it started from.

• Carcinoma in situ: A cluster of malignant cells that has not yet invaded the deeper epithelial tissue or spread to other parts of the body.

• Sarcoma: A usually malignant tumor arising from connective tissue (bone or muscle etc.); one of the four major types of cancer. They start from connective tissues such as muscle tissue, fat tissue or blood vessels.

• Adjuvant therapy: Treatment used in addition to the main treatment. The term usually refers to hormone therapy, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy added after surgery to increase the chances of curing the disease or keeping it in check.

• Antibody: Any of a large variety of proteins normally present in the body or produced in response to an antigen which it neutralizes, thus producing an immune response.

• Antigen: Any substance (as a toxin or enzyme) that stimulates an immune response in the body (especially the production of antibodies)

• Blood Brain Barrier: A mechanism that creates a barrier between brain tissues and circulating blood; serves to protect the central nervous system. "the brain was protected from the large molecules of the virus by the blood-brain barrier"

• Cell: the basic structural and functional unit of all organisms. The basic unit of which all living things are made. The processes that control formation of new cells and death of old cells are disrupted in cancer.

• Chemotherapy: Systemic treatment with drugs to destroy cancer cells. It is often administered intravenously and can be given as single therapy or in combination with multiple drugs at once. Chemotherapy can be administered concurrently or sequentially with other treatments and in addition to surgery or radiation to treat cancer when it has spread, when it has come back (recurred), or when there is a strong chance that it could recur.

• Inflammatory Breast Cancer: A type of invasive breast cancer with spread to lymphatic vessels in the skin covering the breast. The skin of the affected breast is red, feels warm, and may thicken to the consistency of an orange peel. About 1-6 percent of all breast cancer is inflammatory breast cancer.

• Intravenous: Within or by means of a vein. A method of supplying fluids or medications using a needle inserted in a vein.

• Metastasis: The spreading of a disease to another part of the body; also known as advanced cancer. A jargon or term describing stages of cancer in which the disease has spread from the primary site to other parts of the body.

• Neoadjuvant therapy: Systemic therapy, such as chemotherapy or hormone therapy, given before surgery. This can shrink some breast cancers, so that surgical removal can be accomplished with a less extensive operation than would otherwise be needed.

• Oncologist: A specialist in oncology, A doctor with special training in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

• Radiation therapy: (medicine) the treatment of disease (especially cancer) by exposure to a radioactive substance.

• Tumor: An abnormal new mass of tissue that serves no purpose.

• Volumetric Analysis: A quantitative calculation of the space taken up by the metastatic lesion used to compare over time and assess growth or shrinkage.