NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms (2024)

FAQs

What is the NCI definition of cancer? ›

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the federal government's principal agency for cancer research and training. Established under the National Cancer Institute Act of 1937, NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of 11 agencies that make up the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The NCI Dictionary of Genetics Terms contains technical definitions for 242 terms related to genetics. These definitions were developed by the PDQ® Cancer Genetics Editorial Board to support the evidence-based, peer-reviewed PDQ cancer genetics information summaries.

A term for diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control and can invade nearby tissues. Cancer cells can also spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems.

Terms related to cancer types

Neoplasm – this is the medical term for cancer and means "new growth". Benign neoplasm, or benign tumors - a cancer that is not likely to spread, and is contained within one region of the body. Invasive or metastatic tumor - a tumor that has spread from one area of the body to another.

Three designations are recognized: Comprehensive Cancer Centers, Clinical Cancer Centers, and Basic Laboratory Cancer Centers.

The hallmarks constitute an organizing principle for rationalizing the complexities of neoplastic disease. They include sustaining proliferative signaling, evading growth suppressors, resisting cell death, enabling replicative immortality, inducing angiogenesis, and activating invasion and metastasis.

Gene, allele, locus, site. Genotype, phenotype, dominant, recessive, codominant, additive. Polymorphism, mutation. Complex trait, multifactorial, polygenic, monogenic.

Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL) | American Cancer Society.

Cancer is a genetic disease; tumor cells differ from their normal progenitors by genetic alterations that affect growth-regulatory genes. There exist 2 classes of such cancer genes: the oncogenes, which function as positive growth regulators, and the tumor suppressor genes, which function as negative growth regulators.

What is the first definition of cancer? ›

The origin of the word cancer is credited to the Greek physician Hippocrates (460-370 BC), who is considered the “Father of Medicine.” Hippocrates used the terms carcinos and carcinoma to describe non-ulcer forming and ulcer-forming tumors.

Cancer is not just one disease but rather a group of diseases, all of which cause cells in the body to change and grow out of control. Cancers are classified either according to the kind of fluid or tissue from which they originate, or according to the location in the body where they first developed.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is the federal government's principal agency for cancer research and training.

The Definition of Cancer

Cancer is a disease in which some of the body's cells grow uncontrollably and spread to other parts of the body. Cancer can start almost anywhere in the human body, which is made up of trillions of cells.

Malignant. We call a tumor that can spread to other parts of the body a malignant tumor. A malignant tumor is cancer.

Cancer survivorship is a state of being, including the perspectives, needs, health, and the physical, psychological, social, and economic challenges experienced by people and caregivers after a cancer diagnosis. Definition of Cancer Survivorship, definition and graphic developed by the National Cancer Institute.

Cancer refers to diseases in which abnormal cells divide out of control and are able to invade other tissues.

(KLIH-nih-kul REE-serch) Research in which people, or data or samples of tissue from people, are studied to understand health and disease. Clinical research helps find new and better ways to detect, diagnose, treat, and prevent disease.

Carcinoma of unknown primary (CUP) is a rare disease in which malignant (cancer) cells are found in the body but the place the cancer began is not known. Sometimes the primary cancer is never found. The signs and symptoms of CUP are different, depending on where the cancer has spread in the body.