Tumour Pathology 3 Flashcards
What are the local effects of benign tumours?
Pressure and obstruction (e.g. if growing in a cavity or putting pressure on blood vessels)
What are the local effects of malignant tumours?
Pressure, obstruction, tissue destruction (ulceration/infection), bleeding (anaemia/haemorrhage), pain (due to pressure on nerves, perineural infiltration, bone pain from pathological fractures), effects of treatment
What is ulceration?
Break down of tissue
What are the systemic effects of malignant tumours?
Secretion of hormones (can be normal or abnormal/inapproperiate)
Weight loss - cachexia
Paraneoplastic syndromes
Effects of treat,met
What are paraneoplastic syndromes?
Rare disorders triggered by an altered immune response to a neoplasm.
What is normal hormone production by tumours?
These are hormones produced by tumours of an endocrine organ (so cells that would normally secrete hormones) but there is abnormal control of production/secretion
What is abnormal/inapproperiate production of hormones by tumours?
Produced by tumour from an organ that does not normally produce hormones (or that hormone)
Give examples of inappropriate hormone secretion by a tumour.
Lung carcinoma can produce ACTH and ADH.
This is not a classic sign of lung cancer (i.e. only happens rarely)
Paraneoplastic syndromes cannot be explained by local or metastatic effects of tumours. What might be responsible for them?
Immune response or production or hormone/growth factor.
Why is early detection of cancer important?
Reduce/prevent morbidity/mortality it is best to detect at pre-invasive stage (dysplasia/intraepithelial neoplasia)
What is dysplasia?
Pre-malignant changes in cells.
Earliest change in the process of malignancy that can be visualised. Identified in epithelium.
No invasion but can progress to cancer.
Describe the features of dysplasia.
Disorganisation of cells (larger nucleus, more and abnormal mitoses)
No invasion
Can be high or low grade
What does low grade and high grade dysplasia refer to?
Low grade means it has a lower risk of progressing to malignancy, and opposite of high grade.
What would a test have to be to detect cancer early?
Sensitive/specific
Acceptable to population you’re screening
Give an example of a cancer screening programme.
Cervical cancer screening which aims to reduce the incidence of squamous carcinoma of cervix by detecting dysplastic cells in squamous epithelium of cervix.
