Pathology in cancer Flashcards
What is stroma?
The supportive cells of a tissue or organs
Eg. blood vessels, lymphatics, connective tissue, nerves, fat
What is parenchyma?
The functional cells of a tissue or organ
Eg. enterocytes, hepatocytes, prostate glands, nephrons
Describe the behaviour of benign tumours
Localised growth
No invasion
Slow growth
Good resemblance to parent tissue
No metastases
What is a leiomyoma of the myometrium?
A benign tumour that originates in smooth muscle cells of the myometrium
What are some symptoms of benign tumours?
- Abnormal uterine bleeding
- Pressure on adjacent organs causing increased urinary frequency and constipation
- Hormone production Eg. Erythropoietin producing
- Anxiety of the patient
What is a fibroid?
Growths made up of muscular and fibrous tissue that grow in the walls of the uterus
Describe the behaviour of malignant tumours
- Infiltrative and destructive growth
- Often grows fast (high mitotic activity) and grows without regulation
- Distant metastasis
What is colonic mucinous adenocarcinoma?
Presents in the right colon of young patients. Associated with MSI instability
Presents more advanced and with greater nodal involvement
Increased risk of recurrance
What is microsatellite instability?
Microsatellite instability in tumour DNA
-Caused by a disrupted DNA mismatch repair system
What is meant by invasion?
The ability to breach the basement membrane and access blood vessels and lymphatics to spread
What are the 3 methods of metastesis?
- Lymphatic spread
- Blood
- direct spread/seeding of body cavities or surfaces
What does immunohistochemistry look for?
Proteins
What does FISH look for?
Large structural changes in chromosomes/genes. Rearrangements not mutations
What does sequencing/ NGS look for?
Gene sequence changes, single or multiple genes and point mutations/edits
What does CRISPR/Cas9 look for?
Single nucleotide editing
