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Cancer Dictionary
One structured entry per cancer type, each answering the same eight questions in the same order, so you can learn the shape once and use it anywhere.
Educational reference. Not medical advice, and not specific to any individual.
Using the dictionary
How to read an entry
Every entry answers the same eight questions in the same order. Once you have read one, you can read any of them, and you can compare two cancers without relearning the layout.
| The entry asks | What you get |
|---|---|
| The governing idea | The one thing that organises the whole disease. If you read nothing else, read this. |
| How it usually presents | What is normally already established before any molecular question comes up. |
| Disease categories | The major divisions, and what each division actually changes. |
| Molecular considerations | The alterations discussed in this cancer, and the markers behind them. |
| Testing, germline and ctDNA | What is tested, from what sample, and what the inherited-risk question looks like. |
| When it matters | The points in the course of the disease where molecular information changes something. |
| Questions worth raising | Questions for a treating team at a decision point, and again at progression. |
| Trials and glossary | What shapes eligibility, and the terms used, in plain language. |
Searches names and alternative names. Filter by body system below.
Blood and lymphaticAcute Lymphoblastic LeukaemiaALL is managed on long, precisely staged protocols, and measurable residual disease at defined time points is the single most informative measurement, more so than almost any baseline feature.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticAcute Myeloid LeukaemiaAML is the disease where molecular results are needed fastest, because genetic risk classification determines the treatment strategy from the first cycle and cannot usefully be applied retrospectively.Read the entryGastrointestinalBiliary Tract CancerBiliary tract cancer is the uncommon disease with an unusually high rate of actionable findings, which makes comprehensive profiling more consequential here than its rarity would suggest.Read the entryGenitourinaryBladder and Urothelial CancerUrothelial cancer is divided by depth of invasion, and this division governs the entire management discussion. Molecular profiling has become relevant in advanced disease.Read the entryBreastBreast CancerBreast cancer is divided first by receptor status, and that division decides which questions are even worth asking. Genomic profiling answers different questions in each of the resulting groups.Read the entryOther and unknown primaryCancer of Unknown PrimaryCancer of unknown primary is a working diagnosis rather than a disease, and the goal of the workup is to convert it into a known one, because a named primary usually opens better options than a generic approach does.Read the entryGynaecologicalCervical CancerCervical cancer is driven overwhelmingly by persistent HPV infection, which makes prevention and screening the dominant story and places genomic profiling in a narrower supporting role, mainly in advanced disease.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticChronic Lymphocytic LeukaemiaCLL often needs no treatment for years, so the first decision is usually whether to treat at all, and the molecular tests that matter are the ones repeated before each treatment rather than done once at diagnosis.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticChronic Myeloid LeukaemiaCML is defined by a single genetic event and monitored by measuring that event over time, which makes molecular response at defined milestones the central organising fact of the whole disease.Read the entryGastrointestinalColorectal CancerIn colorectal cancer, several molecular results are used to rule treatment classes out as much as to rule them in, which makes profiling before first-line treatment in advanced disease unusually consequential.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticDiffuse Large B-Cell LymphomaDLBCL is aggressive and frequently curable, which makes it one of the few cancers where moving quickly is itself part of the treatment, and where rearrangement testing at diagnosis changes what that treatment should be.Read the entryGynaecologicalEndometrial CancerEndometrial cancer has been reclassified around four molecular groups, and that classification now carries more prognostic weight than histology alone, which makes molecular testing part of the diagnosis rather than an addition to it.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticFollicular LymphomaFollicular lymphoma is usually incurable and usually compatible with a long life, which inverts the normal logic: the question is rarely how to eradicate it but when, and whether, to treat it at all.Read the entryGastrointestinalGastric and Gastro-oesophageal Junction CancerGastric cancer management turns on a small set of markers that must be tested together before first-line treatment, because each one qualifies or excludes a different treatment class.Read the entryGastrointestinalGastrointestinal Stromal TumourGIST is the disease where genotype is not supplementary information but the core of the diagnosis, and where the specific mutation, down to the exon, shapes the entire treatment discussion.Read the entryCentral nervous systemGlioma and GlioblastomaAdult glioma classification is now molecular by definition: a diagnosis cannot be made properly without IDH and 1p/19q status, so molecular testing is part of naming the disease rather than an addition to it.Read the entryHead, neck and thyroidHead and Neck CancerHead and neck cancer is separated first by site and by HPV status, and that separation matters more than any mutation, because HPV-associated oropharyngeal cancer is a different disease with a different outlook.Read the entryGastrointestinalHepatocellular CarcinomaHepatocellular carcinoma is one of the few cancers usually diagnosed without a biopsy, and it is managed as two conditions at once: the tumour and the underlying liver disease.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticHodgkin LymphomaHodgkin lymphoma is one of the most curable cancers there is, which turns the central question from whether treatment will work into how little treatment is enough to keep it working.Read the entryGenitourinaryKidney CancerKidney cancer is classified by histological subtype rather than by mutation, and the subtype, not a genomic panel, is what most shapes the treatment discussion.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticLymphomaLymphoma is a family of more than sixty diagnoses whose behaviours range from needing no treatment to needing treatment within days, so the exact subtype, established by expert haematopathology, decides everything.Read the entrySkinMelanomaMelanoma subtype is decided by where the melanoma arose, and that determines which alterations are likely, which matters especially in India where acral and mucosal melanoma are proportionally more common.Read the entryThoracicMesotheliomaMesothelioma is characterised by loss of tumour suppressors rather than by gain of a targetable driver, which is why the molecular discussion is about vulnerabilities created by what is missing.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticMultiple MyelomaMyeloma is a disease of repeated remissions and relapses, so risk classification at diagnosis and depth of response over time matter more than finding a single targetable alteration.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticMyelodysplastic Syndromes and Myeloproliferative NeoplasmsThese are chronic clonal disorders where the molecular profile establishes the diagnosis, predicts risk, and increasingly identifies inherited predisposition, which makes sequencing part of the diagnosis rather than an addition to it.Read the entryHead, neck and thyroidNasopharyngeal CarcinomaNasopharyngeal carcinoma is defined by its association with Epstein-Barr virus, which makes the virus itself both the diagnostic clue and the most useful thing to measure over time.Read the entryOther and unknown primaryNeuroendocrine NeoplasmsThe distinction between a well-differentiated neuroendocrine tumour and a poorly differentiated neuroendocrine carcinoma separates two entirely different diseases that share a name, and getting it right is the first and most consequential step.Read the entryThoracicNon-Small Cell Lung CancerAdvanced non-squamous lung cancer is the setting where a molecular result most often changes the first treatment given, which is why the timing of testing matters as much as the testing itself.Read the entryGastrointestinalOesophageal CancerOesophageal cancer is really two diseases sharing an organ, and the histological type decides which molecular conversation applies.Read the entryGynaecologicalOvarian CancerHigh-grade serous ovarian cancer is the disease where homologous recombination status is most central, and where the germline question is raised for essentially everyone rather than only for those with a family history.Read the entryGastrointestinalPancreatic CancerMost pancreatic cancer carries the same small set of alterations, none of which is easily targetable, which makes the profiling discussion about finding the minority with something actionable rather than expecting to.Read the entryGenitourinaryProstate CancerProstate cancer covers an unusually wide spectrum, and the molecular discussion applies almost entirely to its advanced end, where DNA repair status and inherited risk both become prominent.Read the entryThoracicSmall Cell Lung CancerSmall cell lung cancer is defined by pace rather than by a targetable driver, so the discussion turns on timing and on emerging subtype biology rather than on a single actionable alteration.Read the entrySarcomaSoft Tissue and Bone SarcomaSarcoma is not one disease but more than a hundred, and getting the exact subtype right is the single most consequential step, because almost everything else follows from it.Read the entryBlood and lymphaticT-Cell LymphomaT-cell lymphomas are a diverse group of individually rare diseases where getting the exact entity right is difficult and consequential, and where expert haematopathology changes the diagnosis often enough to be worth arranging routinely.Read the entryGenitourinaryTesticular CancerTesticular germ cell tumours are highly curable, which shifts the entire discussion from finding a target towards giving the right amount of treatment and preserving long-term health.Read the entryHead, neck and thyroidThyroid CancerThyroid cancer spans one of the widest ranges of behaviour of any cancer, from disease that may never need treatment to among the most aggressive cancers known, and the histological type is what separates them.Read the entry
Being clear about it
What this dictionary will not do
An entry tells you what is discussed. It does not tell you what to do.
We have written every entry to end in questions rather than answers. That is a deliberate choice, not a hedge. Which findings matter in a specific case depends on the stage, the prior treatment, the histology and the person, and none of that is knowable from a web page. What a dictionary entry can do is make sure the right questions get asked.
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