› Forums › General Melanoma Community › “undifferentiated” cancer in pathology report
- This topic has 18 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 11 years, 6 months ago by
JerryfromFauq.
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- March 5, 2014 at 8:33 pm
Has anyone had this terminology in their path report? I was just asked a question about it and started trying to learn more about this term. Apperently it does not reflect on the type of cancer, but more on the difference in the tumor tissue from the normal tissue from which the tumor arose. Would like to get a more info from some of the other researchers on here.
Undifferentiated cancer: A cancer in which the cells are very immature and "primitive" and do not look like cells in the tissue from it arose. As a rule, an undifferentiated cancer is more malignant than a cancer of that type which is well differentiated. Undifferentiated cells are said to be anaplastic.
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/detection/tumor-grade
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3310753/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_stem_cell
SAYS:
The theory suggests that conventional chemotherapies kill differentiated or differentiating cells, which form the bulk of the tumor but are unable to generate new cells. A population of CSCs, which gave rise to it, could remain untouched and cause a relapse of the disease.
Sounds scary!
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- March 6, 2014 at 12:10 am
My husband's path report of an axillary mass referenced a poorly differentiated malignant tumor with large cells, bizarre nuclei, numerous mitosis and occasional cellular elements with abundant eosinophillic cytoplasm. At the time of surgery melanoma was not foremost on our minds since he never had a primary melanoma diagnosis in spite of having many displastic nevi removed over the course af 15 years or so. They did immunohistochemical stains to better determine the type of neoplasm. Final diagnosis – Stage 3 metastatic melanoma with unknown primary. Scary indeed!
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- March 6, 2014 at 12:10 am
My husband's path report of an axillary mass referenced a poorly differentiated malignant tumor with large cells, bizarre nuclei, numerous mitosis and occasional cellular elements with abundant eosinophillic cytoplasm. At the time of surgery melanoma was not foremost on our minds since he never had a primary melanoma diagnosis in spite of having many displastic nevi removed over the course af 15 years or so. They did immunohistochemical stains to better determine the type of neoplasm. Final diagnosis – Stage 3 metastatic melanoma with unknown primary. Scary indeed!
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- March 6, 2014 at 12:10 am
My husband's path report of an axillary mass referenced a poorly differentiated malignant tumor with large cells, bizarre nuclei, numerous mitosis and occasional cellular elements with abundant eosinophillic cytoplasm. At the time of surgery melanoma was not foremost on our minds since he never had a primary melanoma diagnosis in spite of having many displastic nevi removed over the course af 15 years or so. They did immunohistochemical stains to better determine the type of neoplasm. Final diagnosis – Stage 3 metastatic melanoma with unknown primary. Scary indeed!
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- March 6, 2014 at 1:19 am
My path report read "poorly differentiated".
Some research I did a short while ago indicated that this is fairly common with unknown primaries and I had an unknown primary.
When the cancer cells closely resemble normal cells of the organ where they start, the cancer is called well differentiated. When the cells do not look much like normal cells, the cancers are called poorly differentiated. Cancers of unknown primary are often poorly differentiated.
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- March 6, 2014 at 1:19 am
My path report read "poorly differentiated".
Some research I did a short while ago indicated that this is fairly common with unknown primaries and I had an unknown primary.
When the cancer cells closely resemble normal cells of the organ where they start, the cancer is called well differentiated. When the cells do not look much like normal cells, the cancers are called poorly differentiated. Cancers of unknown primary are often poorly differentiated.
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- March 6, 2014 at 1:19 am
My path report read "poorly differentiated".
Some research I did a short while ago indicated that this is fairly common with unknown primaries and I had an unknown primary.
When the cancer cells closely resemble normal cells of the organ where they start, the cancer is called well differentiated. When the cells do not look much like normal cells, the cancers are called poorly differentiated. Cancers of unknown primary are often poorly differentiated.
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- March 6, 2014 at 6:29 am
Do you know which test they used to determine that it is actually melanoma that you have?
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- March 6, 2014 at 6:29 am
Do you know which test they used to determine that it is actually melanoma that you have?
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- March 6, 2014 at 6:29 am
Do you know which test they used to determine that it is actually melanoma that you have?
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- March 6, 2014 at 1:28 pm
Good question, Jerry! My melanoma was found in one of my lymph nodes. I have the path report in front of me now and I can't decipher from it the name of the test that was perforned. But what it looks like they did was take slices of the lymph node they removed, put them in slides, and studied them. I see the term "Flow cytometric process" in the report but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. Below is the diagnosis from Johns Hopkins:
Lymph node, axilla, left (dissection, W10-2700, 11/26/10): Metastatic Malignant Melanoma involving Lymph node. See note.
Note: Sheet of tumor cells exhibit marked plephorism and atypia with nuclear inclusions, prominent red nucleoli. Frequent mitoses, and focal necrosis. On submitted stains, the cells do not stain with cytokeratins (AE1/AE3, CK 5/6, CK7, CK20), mammoglobulin, GCDFP, ER, PR, CK19, TTF-1, MEPAR, and CD45.
At JHH (Johns Hopkins Hospital), the tumor are diffusely positive for MITF and S100, and positive for MELAN A and HMB 45. Rare cells label for Cytokeratin CAM 5.2. Tumor cells are negative for Cytokeratin AE 1/3. Mammoglobin is non-contributory. These results support the above diagnosis.
With unknown primaries, doctors suspect that the original mole was someplace close to the affected lymph node. So in my case it may have been near my left shoulder since the bad node was in my left axilla.
In addition to several doctors giving my left shoulder area their undivided attention and undergoing multiple thorough skin exams by different doctors, they came up empty-handed when it came to moles. The theory is that there probably was a cancerous mole there at one point, but my immune system tackled that portion of it so it regressed. However, it was not able to get it all before it hit the lymph node.
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- March 6, 2014 at 1:28 pm
Good question, Jerry! My melanoma was found in one of my lymph nodes. I have the path report in front of me now and I can't decipher from it the name of the test that was perforned. But what it looks like they did was take slices of the lymph node they removed, put them in slides, and studied them. I see the term "Flow cytometric process" in the report but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. Below is the diagnosis from Johns Hopkins:
Lymph node, axilla, left (dissection, W10-2700, 11/26/10): Metastatic Malignant Melanoma involving Lymph node. See note.
Note: Sheet of tumor cells exhibit marked plephorism and atypia with nuclear inclusions, prominent red nucleoli. Frequent mitoses, and focal necrosis. On submitted stains, the cells do not stain with cytokeratins (AE1/AE3, CK 5/6, CK7, CK20), mammoglobulin, GCDFP, ER, PR, CK19, TTF-1, MEPAR, and CD45.
At JHH (Johns Hopkins Hospital), the tumor are diffusely positive for MITF and S100, and positive for MELAN A and HMB 45. Rare cells label for Cytokeratin CAM 5.2. Tumor cells are negative for Cytokeratin AE 1/3. Mammoglobin is non-contributory. These results support the above diagnosis.
With unknown primaries, doctors suspect that the original mole was someplace close to the affected lymph node. So in my case it may have been near my left shoulder since the bad node was in my left axilla.
In addition to several doctors giving my left shoulder area their undivided attention and undergoing multiple thorough skin exams by different doctors, they came up empty-handed when it came to moles. The theory is that there probably was a cancerous mole there at one point, but my immune system tackled that portion of it so it regressed. However, it was not able to get it all before it hit the lymph node.
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- March 6, 2014 at 1:28 pm
Good question, Jerry! My melanoma was found in one of my lymph nodes. I have the path report in front of me now and I can't decipher from it the name of the test that was perforned. But what it looks like they did was take slices of the lymph node they removed, put them in slides, and studied them. I see the term "Flow cytometric process" in the report but I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for. Below is the diagnosis from Johns Hopkins:
Lymph node, axilla, left (dissection, W10-2700, 11/26/10): Metastatic Malignant Melanoma involving Lymph node. See note.
Note: Sheet of tumor cells exhibit marked plephorism and atypia with nuclear inclusions, prominent red nucleoli. Frequent mitoses, and focal necrosis. On submitted stains, the cells do not stain with cytokeratins (AE1/AE3, CK 5/6, CK7, CK20), mammoglobulin, GCDFP, ER, PR, CK19, TTF-1, MEPAR, and CD45.
At JHH (Johns Hopkins Hospital), the tumor are diffusely positive for MITF and S100, and positive for MELAN A and HMB 45. Rare cells label for Cytokeratin CAM 5.2. Tumor cells are negative for Cytokeratin AE 1/3. Mammoglobin is non-contributory. These results support the above diagnosis.
With unknown primaries, doctors suspect that the original mole was someplace close to the affected lymph node. So in my case it may have been near my left shoulder since the bad node was in my left axilla.
In addition to several doctors giving my left shoulder area their undivided attention and undergoing multiple thorough skin exams by different doctors, they came up empty-handed when it came to moles. The theory is that there probably was a cancerous mole there at one point, but my immune system tackled that portion of it so it regressed. However, it was not able to get it all before it hit the lymph node.
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- March 6, 2014 at 10:36 pm
Jerry, my husband's tumor was positive for S100 and Vimentin and that was the basis for metastatic melanoma dx. It was later found to be BRAF negative wild type. It was rather large in size, 5.7 x 4.2 x 3.5 cm.
We went to John Hopkins for a second opinion. They wanted to remove all lymph nodes is tha axilla, followed by radiation and then consider a vaccine trial. We declined the lymph node removal and selected 20 low dose radiation treatments followed by a year of Interferon. 16 months out from Initial dx he is at NED status. Two months post Interfron his appetite and stamina are returning and he plans to run in the DC Melanoma 5K next month.
Next pet scan in 6 weeks. We live each day to fullest and will jump the next hurdle when it comes. When I put on my rose colored specs I think if it comes back…
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- March 6, 2014 at 10:36 pm
Jerry, my husband's tumor was positive for S100 and Vimentin and that was the basis for metastatic melanoma dx. It was later found to be BRAF negative wild type. It was rather large in size, 5.7 x 4.2 x 3.5 cm.
We went to John Hopkins for a second opinion. They wanted to remove all lymph nodes is tha axilla, followed by radiation and then consider a vaccine trial. We declined the lymph node removal and selected 20 low dose radiation treatments followed by a year of Interferon. 16 months out from Initial dx he is at NED status. Two months post Interfron his appetite and stamina are returning and he plans to run in the DC Melanoma 5K next month.
Next pet scan in 6 weeks. We live each day to fullest and will jump the next hurdle when it comes. When I put on my rose colored specs I think if it comes back…
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- March 6, 2014 at 10:36 pm
Jerry, my husband's tumor was positive for S100 and Vimentin and that was the basis for metastatic melanoma dx. It was later found to be BRAF negative wild type. It was rather large in size, 5.7 x 4.2 x 3.5 cm.
We went to John Hopkins for a second opinion. They wanted to remove all lymph nodes is tha axilla, followed by radiation and then consider a vaccine trial. We declined the lymph node removal and selected 20 low dose radiation treatments followed by a year of Interferon. 16 months out from Initial dx he is at NED status. Two months post Interfron his appetite and stamina are returning and he plans to run in the DC Melanoma 5K next month.
Next pet scan in 6 weeks. We live each day to fullest and will jump the next hurdle when it comes. When I put on my rose colored specs I think if it comes back…
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- March 9, 2014 at 12:50 am
Sounds good. Very happy for him. I thank all for your responses and will provide this info to the people asking me aabout it.
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- March 9, 2014 at 12:50 am
Sounds good. Very happy for him. I thank all for your responses and will provide this info to the people asking me aabout it.
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- March 9, 2014 at 12:50 am
Sounds good. Very happy for him. I thank all for your responses and will provide this info to the people asking me aabout it.
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