Week #11 Flashcards
The most common kinds of cancers in australia are?
Basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma
What are the hallmarks of cancer?
- Sustaining proliferative signalling
- Resisting cell death
- Inducing angiogenesis
- Enabling replicative immortality
- Evading growth supressors
- Activating invasion and metastasis
- Ability to evade immune system?
What are the leading causes of cancer in men and women in victoria?
- Men=prostate, bowel, lung
- Women=breast, bowel, melanoma
The most common cancer causing death in vicotoria in men and women is?
- Lung cancer
Lung cancer is mre common in _____ whereas stomach and liver cancer is more common in _____
- Western countries (and china)
- Asia
What is one of the common name for cancers that occur in children?
- Often referred to as blastomas as in a child the cancers often resemble a blastoma
Compare benign and malignant tumour types
Benign
- Benign are expansive growth locally which is generally slower, better circumscribed and are well differentiated, may look more normal
Malignant
- Malignant tumours are “cancers” and are invasive and will destroys the adjacent tissues that they invade into and can also metastasize so they can move systemically
- Poorly circumscribed
- Necrosis due to inadequate blood supply-too fast growing
- Metastasize via lymph blood and/or body cavities
- Note their are also uncertain maligant/ borderline cells
Macroscopic images
- Can see benign is the smooth muscle lesion in the uterus. Well circumscribed and it just pushes the cells away. Rarely cause death but can cause symptoms.
- Malignant tumour of the uterus. Cells are invading into the uterus Not well circumscribed.
What are the three ways that cancer can metastisize?
- Through the lymphatics
- cancer can drain to the lymph nodes and then grow there
- Cancer can also enter the blood through this route as lymph eventually drains into the blood
- Blood borne spread
- cancer can enter the veins and then be returned to the heart and pumped around the body
- Transcoelomic spread
- tumour can migrate out into pleura (for example and migrate through the body cavity
What is this?
- Lymphovascular invasion
- cancer cells in small vessels suggesting metastasis
What are some of the common sites of metastasis?
- Bone, lung, brain and liver.
What is the histological appearance of cancer cells?
- Compared to normal cells, neoplastic cells tend to demonstrate
- cytological atypia
- larger nuclei
- pleomorphic nuclei: variation in size and shape
- coars nuclear chromatin
- hyperchromatic nuclei
- larger more prominent nucleoli
- more mitotic activity +/- abnormal mitotic figures
- Architectural disorganisation
- cytological atypia
- Benign neoplastic cells genrally show less atyoia than maligant cells
Cancer cell appearance
Coarse chromatin and mitotic figures
Nuclear hyperchromasia
coarse chromatin
extreme nuclear pleomorphism
Architectural disorganisation
Desmoplastic stroma
- desmoplastic stroma
- cancer stroma has lots of collagen and fibroblasts and inflammatory cells
- Tumour can be firm due to fibrous stroma
Malignant tumours can be necrotic
- necrotic cells do not fit the pattern of caseous etc
- but are pyknotic and shrunken and fragmenting
- Not seen in benign tumours
We need to characterise if a tumour is benign or malignant but we also need to then chracterise the tumour ______
determined histologically
- Cell lineage
- can be epithelial, mesenchymal or other
What are the chracterists of an adenocarcinoma?
- Cancer of the glandular epithelium
- will often see a lumen in the tumours
- as they are in glands
- may also see the formation of mucin
- cancers secreting lots of mucin
- Can sometimes times see mucin within the cell-signet ring cells
What are the features of squamous cell carcinoma?
- shows features of stratified squamous epithelium
- Includes cells with eosinophilic cytoplasm
- intercellular bridges
- may also see keratinization
What are the features of a smooth muscle tumour (Leiomyosarcoma)?
- Cells will look like smooth muscle
- elongated nuclei with rounded ends
What are the steps to diagnose a mass lesion?
- Decide if it is neoplastic or non-neoplastic?
- If neoplastic
- Benign or malignant?
- type: epithelial,mesenchymal etc?
- If malignant: primary vs metastatic?
Tumour typing terminology:
What do the following prefixes mean:
Adeno
Squamous cell
Leiomyo
Osteo
What do the following sufixes mean:
- oma
- carcinoma
- sarcoma
What are some exception to this?
Prefixes
- glandular
- squamous cell
- smooth muscle
- osteoblastic (osteoid forming)
Suffix
- Benign
- maligant epithelial
- maligant mesenchymal
Exceptions?
- Seminoma: is actually maligant testicular lesion, lymphoma-also malignant
What is the significance of the degree of differentiation of tumours?
Well differentiated
- more closely resembles mature cells
- cell cytologic atypia (smaller more uniform nuclei, inconspicuous nucleoli), less mitotic activity
- Architecturally more organised
Porrly differentiated
- poorly resemble mature cells
- more cytolytic atypia (enlarged pleomorphic nuclei, prominent nucleoli, nuclear hyperchromasia or coarse nuclear chromatin), more mitotic activity +/- atypical mitoses
- archeticturally less organised
- Benign tumours are well differentiated
- Malignant tumours may be well, moderately or poorly differentiated
- The degree of differentiation of a malignant tumour is referred to as its grade
Well differentiated adenocarcinoma vs poorly differentiaed adenocarcinoma
Well differentiated squamous cell carcinoma or poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma
Well differentiated smooth muscle sarcoma vs poorly differentiated smooth muscle sarcoma