For instance, in chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or CLL, a specific piece of a chromosome is lost, and often times lost along with it is a gene that helps suppress cancer. Sign up for our Health Tip of the Day newsletter, and receive daily tips that will help you live your healthiest life.
National Cancer Institute. NCI dictionary of cancer terms. Biopsy Interpretation: The Frozen Section. Use of severity grades to characterize histopathologic changes.
Toxicol Pathol. Ultrasound guided fine-needle aspiration cytology of breast lesions. J Ultrasound. Ho C, Rodig SJ. Immunohistochemical markers in lymphoid malignancies: Protein correlates of molecular alterations.
Semin Diagn Pathol. Survival of Del17p CLL depends on genomic complexity and somatic mutation. Clin Cancer Res. Diagnosis and classification of hematologic malignancies on the basis of genetics. Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for VerywellHealth.
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Interpreting the Report. Molecular Descriptions. Other Sampling Techniques. Your doctor will receive these test results as they become available. It may take a few days to a few weeks to receive the full report. The timing depends on the testing needed. You are allowed by law to receive a copy of your pathology report. But you should expect the report to contain highly technical medical terms. Ask your doctor to explain the results in the pathology report and what they mean.
Different pathologists use different words to describe the same things. But most pathology reports include the sections discussed below. This section describes the tissue sample or tumor as seen with the naked eye. This includes the general color, weight, size, and consistency. This is the most technical section of the report.
It describes what the cancer cells look like when viewed under a microscope. There are several factors noted in this section that affect diagnosis and treatment.
Whether the cancer is invasive. Invasive tumors can spread to other parts of the body through a process called metastasis. Although noninvasive tumors do not spread, they may grow or develop into an invasive tumor in the future. For invasive tumors, it is important for the pathologist to note how much the tumor has grown into nearby healthy tissue. Grade describes how the cancer cells look compared with healthy cells. In general, the pathologist is looking for differences in the size, shape, and staining features of the cells.
A tumor with cells that look more like healthy cells is called "low grade" or "well differentiated. There are different methods used to assign a cancer grade for different types of cancers. Learn more about grading for specific cancer types. How quickly cells are dividing, mitotic rate. The pathologist usually notes how many cells are dividing. This is called the mitotic rate. Tumors with fewer dividing cells are usually low grade. Tumor margin. Another important factor is whether there are cancer cells at the margins, or edges, of the biopsy sample.
This means that it is likely that cancerous cells are still in the body. Lymph nodes. The pathologist will also note whether the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes or other organs.
Lymph nodes are tiny, bean-shaped organs that help fight disease. Most histology laboratories process hundreds of tissue samples each day and produce slides for pathologists to examine. To make and confirm a cancer diagnosis, a pathologist must always look at microscopic slides of a lesion.
If there is cancer, a pathologist will have another pathologist confirm the diagnosis. If only a tiny part of a cancer was sampled by your physician, such as smears, scrapes, shaves, fluids, aspirates, or biopsies the pathology report may only say that cancer is present. If more tissue was removed, there will be information in the report.
A pathology report should identify you correctly, with your name and at least one other unique identifier such as your birthdate or medical record number. The report will have the date that your tissue was collected and sent to pathology and a laboratory specimen number.
The most important part of your pathology report is the Diagnosis, sometimes called Final or Microscopic Diagnosis. Your cancer diagnosis will be stated in that part. If your operation also treated your cancer, your pathology report also should contain a cancer summary. This summary puts together all the pathologic information about your cancer found from examining your tissue specimen.
The summary should list the type of cancer, special features of the cancer and whether the cancer has spread outside the organ where it started. This information helps your physician and you to decide whether your cancer needs more treatment and what kind.
There are many different kinds of cancer. Carcinoma is a cancer of cells that cover or line organs such as lungs, stomach and colon; it is the most common type of cancer. Sarcoma is cancer of the structural parts of the body bone, cartilage, muscle, etc. Leukemia and lymphomas are cancers of the blood and lymph system.
How badly a cancer may behave is usually stated as well, moderately or poorly differentiated or as grade 1, 2, 3 with grade 1 being the best.
Stage, or how far a cancer has spread, is reported using the TNM staging system. T stands for tumor; numbers from 1 to 4 and letters a,b,c etc are used just like clothing sizes with T1a being the smallest size and most likely to be cured and T4c being a very large tumor that almost always needs additional nonsurgical treatment.
N stands for lymph node spread and M for other cancer spread metastatases with numbering and letters starting with zero being the best and the higher the number or letter, the worse the spread. N0 zero means no lymph node metastasis. M0 zero means no metastatic disease. Sometimes the cancer summary is not done because not enough tissue was removed to stage your cancer.
Sometimes a clear diagnosis cannot be established on a tissue sample. The pathologist may also perform tests on your tissue e. If you have had more than one operation with tissue removed, the pathologist should review your prior pathology material before examining your newest tissue. This prevents mistakes being made in your diagnosis and staging. If your doctor removed a melanoma, and then another doctor removed more tissue, two different pathologists may have examined your tissue.
If small differences in your cancer type or stage might change your cancer treatment, you can ask to have your pathology materials reviewed by a pathologist who specializes in your type of cancer. Most large pathology practices automatically give cancers to specialists, but small pathology practices may not have specialists. Specialty review of your pathology may provide additional, useful information in planning your cancer treatment.
A pathology report gives the results of a tissue examination to your doctor. Pathology reports of tissue that has been removed for cancer should have information on the type, grade and stage of the cancer in order for you and your doctor to plan the best treatment. No physician can ethically treat a cancer until there is a pathologic diagnosis of that cancer.
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