| Cancer | |
|---|---|
| Specialty | Oncology |
The following is a list of cancer types. Cancer is a group of diseases that involve abnormal increases in the number of cells, with the potential to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Not all tumors or lumps are cancerous; benign tumors are not classified as being cancer because they do not spread to other parts of the body. There are over 100 different known cancers that affect humans.
Cancers are often described by the body part that they originated in. However, some body parts contain multiple types of tissue, so for greater precision, cancers are additionally classified by the type of cell that the tumor cells originated from. These types include:
- Carcinoma: Cancers derived from epithelial cells. This group includes many of the most common cancers that occur in older adults. Nearly all cancers developing in the breast, prostate, lung, pancreas, and colon are carcinomas.
- Sarcoma: Cancers arising from connective tissue (i.e. bone, cartilage, fat, nerve), each of which develop from cells originating in mesenchymal cells outside of the bone marrow.
- Lymphoma and leukemia: These two classes of cancer arise from immature cells that originate in the bone marrow, and are intended to fully differentiate and mature into normal components of the immune system and the blood, respectively. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is the most common type of cancer in children, accounting for ~30% of cases. However, far more adults than children develop lymphoma and leukemia.
- Germ cell tumor: Cancers derived from pluripotent cells, most often presenting in the testicle or the ovary (seminoma and dysgerminoma, respectively).
- Blastoma: Cancers derived from immature "precursor" cells or embryonic tissue. Blastomas are generally more common in children (e.g. neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, nephroblastoma, hepatoblastoma, medulloblastoma, etc.) than in older adults.
Cancers are usually named using -carcinoma, -sarcoma or -blastoma as a suffix, with the Latin or Greek word for the organ or tissue of origin as the root. For example, the most common cancer of the liver parenchyma ("hepato-" = liver), arising from malignant epithelial cells ("carcinoma"), would be called a hepatocarcinoma, while a malignancy arising from primitive liver precursor cells is called a hepatoblastoma. Similarly, a cancer arising from malignant fat cells would be termed a liposarcoma.
For some common cancers, the English organ name is used. For example, the most common type of breast cancer is called ductal carcinoma of the breast.
Benign tumors (which are not cancers) are usually named using -oma as a suffix with the organ name as the root. For example, a benign tumor of smooth muscle cells is called a leiomyoma (the common name of this frequently occurring benign tumor in the uterus is fibroid). Confusingly, some types of cancer use the -noma suffix, examples including melanoma and seminoma.
Some types of cancer are named for the size and shape of the cells under a microscope, such as giant cell carcinoma, spindle cell carcinoma, and small-cell carcinoma.
Bone and muscle sarcoma
- Chondrosarcoma
- Ewing's sarcoma
- Malignant fibrous histiocytoma of bone/osteosarcoma
- Osteosarcoma
- Rhabdomyosarcoma
- Leiomyosarcoma
- Myxosarcoma
- Fibrocartilaginous mesenchymoma of bone
Brain and nervous system
- Astrocytoma
- Brainstem glioma
- Pilocytic astrocytoma
- Ependymoma
- Primitive neuroectodermal tumor
- Cerebellar astrocytoma
- Cerebral astrocytoma
- Glioblastoma
- Glioma
- Medulloblastoma
- Neuroblastoma
- Oligodendroglioma
- Pineal astrocytoma
- Pituitary adenoma
- Visual pathway and hypothalamic glioma
Breast
- Breast cancer
- Inflammatory breast cancer
- Invasive lobular carcinoma
- Tubular carcinoma
- Invasive cribriform carcinoma of the breast (also termed invasive cribriform carcinoma)
- Medullary carcinoma
- Male breast cancer
- Phyllodes tumor
- Mammary secretory carcinoma
- Papillary carcinomas of the breast
Endocrine system
- Adrenocortical carcinoma
- Islet cell carcinoma (endocrine pancreas)
- Multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome
- Pancreatic Cancer
- Parathyroid cancer
- Pheochromocytoma
- Thyroid cancer
- Merkel cell carcinoma
Eye
Gastrointestinal
- Anal cancer
- Appendix cancer
- Cholangiocarcinoma
- Carcinoid tumor, gastrointestinal
- Colon cancer
- Extrahepatic bile duct cancer
- Gallbladder cancer
- Gastric (stomach) cancer
- Gastrointestinal carcinoid tumor
- Gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST)
- Hepatocellular cancer
- Pancreatic cancer, islet cell
- Rectal cancer
- Small intestine cancer
Genitourinary and gynecologic
- Bladder cancer
- Cervical cancer
- Endometrial cancer
- Extragonadal germ cell tumor
- Ovarian cancer
- Ovarian epithelial cancer (surface epithelial-stromal tumor)
- Ovarian germ cell tumor
- Penile cancer
- Kidney cancer
- Renal cell carcinoma
- Renal pelvis and ureter, transitional cell cancer*
- Prostate cancer
- Testicular cancer
- Gestational trophoblastic tumor
- Ureter and renal pelvis,
- transitional cell cancer(urothelial carcinoma)
- Urethral cancer
- Uterine sarcoma
- Vaginal cancer
- Vulvar cancer
- Wilms tumor (nephroblastoma)
Head and neck
- Esophageal cancer
- Head and neck cancer
- Nasopharyngeal carcinoma
- Oral cancer
- Oropharyngeal cancer
- Paranasal sinus and nasal cavity cancer
- Pharyngeal cancer
- Salivary gland cancer
- Hypopharyngeal cancer
Hematopoietic
- Acute biphenotypic leukemia
- Acute eosinophilic leukemia
- Acute lymphoblastic leukemia
- Acute myeloid leukemia
- Acute myeloid dendritic cell leukemia
- AIDS-related lymphoma
- Anaplastic large cell lymphoma
- Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma
- B-cell prolymphocytic leukemia
- Burkitt's lymphoma
- Chronic lymphocytic leukemia
- Chronic myelogenous leukemia
- Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma
- Diffuse large B-cell lymphoma
- Follicular lymphoma
- Hairy cell leukemia
- Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma
- Hodgkin's lymphoma
- Intravascular large B-cell lymphoma
- Large granular lymphocytic leukemia
- Lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma
- Lymphomatoid granulomatosis
- Mantle cell lymphoma
- Marginal zone B-cell lymphoma
- Mast cell leukemia
- Mediastinal large B cell lymphoma
- Multiple myeloma/plasma cell neoplasm
- Myelodysplastic syndromes
- Mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue lymphoma
- Mycosis fungoides
- Nodal marginal zone B cell lymphoma
- Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- Precursor B lymphoblastic leukemia
- Primary central nervous system lymphoma
- Primary cutaneous follicular lymphoma
- Primary cutaneous immunocytoma
- Primary effusion lymphoma
- Plasmablastic lymphoma
- Sézary syndrome
- Splenic marginal zone lymphoma
- T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia
Skin
- Basal cell carcinoma
- Squamous cell carcinoma
- Squamous cell skin cancer
- Skin adnexal tumors (e.g. sebaceous carcinoma)
- Melanoma
- Merkel cell carcinoma
- Keratoacanthoma
- Sarcomas of primary cutaneous origin (e.g. dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans)
- Lymphomas of primary cutaneous origin (e.g. mycosis fungoides)
Thoracic and respiratory
- Adenocarcinoma of the lung
- Bronchial adenomas/carcinoids
- Small cell lung cancer
- Mesothelioma
- Non-small cell lung cancer
- Non-small cell lung carcinoma
- Pleuropulmonary blastoma
- Laryngeal cancer
- Thymoma and thymic carcinoma
- Squamous-cell carcinoma of the lung
