MEDICAL DICTIONARY
Metastasis: The very important process by which cancer spreads from one part of the body to another, the way it travels from the place at which it first arose as a primary tumor to distant locations in the body.
The term "metastasis" also applies to a tumor that crops up by this process due to the spread of the primary tumor. For example, someone with melanoma may have a metastasis in their brain. And a person with colon cancer may fortunately show no metastasis.
Cells that metastasize are basically of the same kind as those in the original tumor. So, if the cancer arose in the lung and metastasized to the liver , the cancer cells growing in the liver are lung cancer cells.
The ancient Greeks used the word metastasis to mean "removal from one place to another." The plural of "metastasis" is "metastases."
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