Cell pathology 3-5 Flashcards
What is a tumour?
Any kind of mass-forming lesion that can be neoplastic, hamartomatous or inflammatory.
What is a neoplasm?
Autonomous tissue growth which has escaped the constraints of normal cell growth. Can be benign or malignant.
What is a hamartoma?
Localised benign overgrowth of one or more mature cell types. Architectural abnormalities not cytological ones.
What is a heterotopia?
Normal tissue found in parts of the body where it is not normally found.
What is a teratoma?
Tumours derived from germ cells that can contain tissue from all three layers. they can contain mature tissue and cancers.
What are the four main differential characteristics between malignant and benign tumours?
1) Invasian
2) Metastasis
3) Differentiation
4) Growth pattern
How can tumours spread? (5)
1) Direct extension
2) Haematogenous - blood
3) Lymphatics
4) Transcoelomic - through a body cavity
5) Perineural - nerves
What are the three ways that tumours can be assessed?
Radiologically, clinically and pathologically (most important)
What are the five things used to describe the extent of a tumour?
1) T - tumour: size, extent, invasion
2) N - number of lymph nodes involved
3) M - metastases
4) Grade - how differentiated it is
5) Stage - how far it has spread
Name 8 things that can cause cell injury
1) Oxygen deprivation
2) Chemical agents
3) Infectious agents
4) Physical agents
5) Immunological reactions
6) Genetic defects
7) Aging
8) Nutritional imbalance
What is atrophy?
A decrease in cell or organ size due to loss of cellular substance.
What is hypertrophy?
An increase in cell size and consequently organ size due to increased functional demand or specific hormonal stimulation.
What is hyperplasia?
An increase in number of cells in an organ - can be pathological or physiological.
What is metaplasia?
A reversible change in which one adult cell is replaced by another. Can be pathological or physiological.
What is dysplasia?
Precancerous cells that show genetic or cytological features of malignancy but are not involving underlying tissues yet.
What is necrosis?
Cell death associated with inflammation.
What is apoptosis?
Programmed cell death. Apoptotic cells are broken down into fragments and engulfed by phagocytic cells.
What is necropoptosis?
Programmed cell death associated with cell inflammation, often caused by viral infections.
What can cause apoptosis?
- Embryogenesis
- Detection of auto-reactive T cells in the thymus (autoimmune disorders)
- Cell deletion in proliferating populations
- Mild injurious stimuli
What is the stroma?
The tissue around a cancer that supports the tumour, made up of connective tissue, blood vessels and macrophages etc.
What screening programs are in place for cancer in the UK?
Cervical, breast and colorectal.
What does the HBV vaccine protect against?
Liver cancer
What are the differences between coroner autopsy and hospital autopsy?
Hospital autopsies requires consent from the next of kin but they are allowed to take any material (with consent). The opposite is found with coroner autopsies.
What is the most superficial wound?
Abrasion
What is a bruise?
Blunt trauma injury where blood has leaked out of small arteries, veins and venules (not capillaries).
