Loading
The original tumour where a cancer started. Cancer is named after this site for life: a breast cancer that spreads to the liver is still breast cancer, not liver cancer.
The primary defines the cancer's biology, its likely drivers and its treatment, because the spread cells (metastases or secondaries) inherit its identity; a pathologist can usually recognise the origin from the cells' appearance and markers. Local treatments, surgery and radiotherapy, are aimed at the primary and can cure a cancer that has not spread; once distant metastases exist, removing the primary usually no longer cures, though it may still relieve symptoms. In about two percent of cases, the primary is never found (cancer of unknown primary), and genomic profiling is increasingly used to infer where it came from.
Shares Stage, Metastasis, TNM staging.
Shares Cancer of unknown primary, favourable subsets, Cancer of unknown primary, unfavourable (adenocarcinoma and poorly differentiated carcinoma).
Shares Cancer of unknown primary, favourable subsets, Cancer of unknown primary, unfavourable (adenocarcinoma and poorly differentiated carcinoma).
Shares Stage, Metastasis.
Shares Metastasis, The metastatic cascade.
Shares Metastasis, The metastatic cascade.
Shares Stage, TNM staging.