Until I started taking online courses for the science of cancer, I really didn’t fully understand the differences between leukemia, lymphoma, solid tumors, etc.
So here’s a brief glossary covering some of the common terms you might come across-
Benign tumor: a mass surrounded by a fibrous capsule. They can cause serious problems but they are not malignant and cannot spread.
Malignant tumor: a tumor that has the ability to invade nearby lymph nodes and spread or metastasize to distant organs and tissues in the body.
Solid tumors: can develop in any tissue or organ in the body but are most commonly seen in breast, prostate, cervix, uterus, and the liver. They consist of cancer cells, healthy cells from tissue of origin, connective tissue cells, blood vessels, and immune cells.
Leukemia: cancers that primarily develop in the bone marrow and spread into the bloodstream.
Lymphoma: cancers that form in the lymphoid organs such as lymph nodes and the spleen.
Multiple myeloma: cancer of the immune system cells.
Hodgkins: under the microscope, biopsies are notable for presence of large cells that resemble owl’s eyes, known as Reed-Sternberg cells. Non-hodgkins diseases lack these Reed-Sternberg cells. (as seen in the picture below)