Neoplasia 1

Question 1

What is a neoplasm?

Answer 1

An abnormal growth of cells that persists after the stimulus has been removed

Question 2

What is a malignant neoplasm?

Answer 2

An abnormal growth of cells that persists after the stimulus has been removed AND invades surrounding tissue with the potential to spread to distal sites

Question 3

What is a tumour?

Answer 3

Any clinically detectable lump or swelling

Question 4

What is a metastasis?

Answer 4

Malignant neoplasm that has spread from its original site to a new non-contigous site

Question 5

What is dysplasia?

Answer 5

A pre-neoplastic alteration to cells which shows disordered tissue organisation

It is REVERSIBLE

Question 6

How do benign and malignant neoplasms show different behaviour?

Answer 6

Benign tumours: grow in a confined area and do not produce metastasis

Malignant neoplasms: have the potential to metastasise

Question 7

How do benign and malignant neoplasms differ to the naked eye?

Answer 7

Benign tumours- grow in a confined area and push out an outer margin

Malignant tumours- irregular outer margin and shape. May show areas of necrosis and ulceration

Question 8

How do benign neoplasms look under the microscope?

Answer 8

• Well differentiated
• closely resemble the parent tissue

Question 9

How do malignant neoplasms look under the microscope?

Answer 9

Malignant neoplasms can be well differentiated, Moderately differentiated or poorly differentiated

Question 10

What are cells that bear no resemblance to any tissue called?

Answer 10

Anaplastic

Question 11

How do cells change with worsening differentiation?

Answer 11

• increased nuclear size
• increased nuclear to cytoplasm ratio
• increased nuclear staining
• more mitotic figures
• increased variation in size and shape of cells and nuclei

Question 12

What is pleomorphism?

Answer 12

increased variation in size and shape of cells and nuclei

Question 13

How does neoplasia occur?

Answer 13

Accumulated mutations in somatic cells

Question 14

What 2 things are needed for neoplasia to occur?

Answer 14

1. A mutagenic initiator
2. Promoters that cause cell proliferation

Question 15

What are monoclonal neoplasms?

Answer 15

A collection of cells that all originate from a single founding cell

Question 16

How can you determine if a neoplasm is monoclonal using glucose-6-phospate dehydrogenase?

Answer 16

• There are different alleles encoding different isoenzymes of G6PD
• In lyonisation, one allele is randomly inactivated in each cell which will give a patchwork of each cell type
• In neoplasms, all cells will only express one isoenzyme which indicates they are neoplastic

Question 17

What is a carcinoma?

Answer 17

A malignant neoplasm of epithelial origin

Question 18

What is a sarcoma?

Answer 18

A malignant neoplasm of stromal cells (connective tissue)

Question 19

What is the difference between in situ and invasive carcinomas?

Answer 19

In situ- don’t invade through epithelial basement membranes

Invasive- penetrate the basement membrane

Question 20

What is leukaemia?

Answer 20

A malignant neoplasm of blood forming cells arising in bone marrow

Question 21

What is lymphoma?

Answer 21

A malignant neoplasm of lymphocytes, mainly affecting lymph nodes

Question 22

What is myeloma?

Answer 22

A malignant neoplasm of plasma cells

Question 23

What is a germ cell neoplasm?

Answer 23

Neoplasm arising from pluripotent cells, mainly in the testes and ovaries

Question 24

What do prominent nucleoli in biopsies indicate?

Answer 24

A high rate of DNA transcription

Question 25

What is lipoma?

Answer 25

A benign tumour of adipose tissue

Question 26

What is the difference between exophytic and endophytic growth?

Answer 26

Exophytic= grows out from the surface (benign) Endophytic= invades surrounding tissue (malignant)

Question 27

What is an annular tumour?

Answer 27

One that grows around the wall of something E.g around the bowel like a napkin ring