Terms used in Cancer

Oncologist Amritsar

These are words that you may hear your cancer care team use.

  • Benign: a tumor that’s not cancer
  • Biopsy:taking out a piece of tissue to see if cancer cells are in it
  • Cancer: a word used to describe more than 100 diseases in which cells grow out of control; or a tumor with cancer in it
  • Chemotherapy:the use of drugs to treat disease. The word most often refers to drugs used to treat cancer. Sometimes it’s just called “chemo.”
  • Malignant: having cancer in it
  • Metastasis/Metastasized : the spread of cancer cells to distant parts of the body through the lymph system or bloodstream
  • Oncologist: a doctor who treats people who have cancer
  • Radiation therapy : the use of high-energy rays, like x-rays, to treat cancer
  • Remission: when signs or symptoms of cancer are all or partly gone
  • Stage: a word that tells whether a cancer has spread, and if so, how far