terms and abbreviations...

KathiM
KathiM Member Posts: 8,028 Member
edited March 2014 in Breast Cancer #1
Another post on the CRC board...from trainer...GREAT info!!!!

As a fairly new Semicolon, I'm still trying to get a handle on all the shorthand used in messages here. So I was pleased to find this list of terms and abbreviations on The Colon Club site. If you see any errors in this list, please point them out. Hope this list is helpful to others:

Many people new to this disease and new to this board can get lost in the alphabet soup of the terminology. It's almost impossible to read an abstract of a clinical trial without some of these terms and abbreviations.
So here's a start for translation. Hopefully others will augment and amend as necessary:

DX - diagnosis
TX - treatment
PX - prognosis
OS - overall survival
PFS - progression free survival - used to describe the time that a patient is stable, or showing no worsening/progression of the disease
DFS - disease free survival - used to describe the time that a patient is NED
NED - no evidence of disease
MRD - minimal residual disease
LN - Lymph node
PSD - peritoneal surface disease - means that the cancer has spread to the chest cavity and is on the surface of the organs rather than within the organs
HIPEC - heated chemotherapy used to wash out the peritoneal/abdominal cavity
Met - metastasis
Lesion - something fishy, usually a tumor
Neoplastic process - potentially cancerous activity
Imaging - generally some type of scan or X-ray
PS - Performance Status - a term used to describe your overall ability to function, dressing yourself, eating, physical activity, etc.


Bevacizumab (Avastin) - a drug used to stop new blood vessels from forming
Anti-angiogenesis - the process of stopping new blood vessels from forming
VEGF - Vascular endothelial growth factor - the part of the cancer cell dealing with new blood vessel formation

Peripheral Neuropathy - a side effect of chemotherapy in which the nerves in your extremities are damaged and you experience numbness and some loss of use of your hands and feet

Anti-emetic - any kind of drug that is used to combat nausea and vomiting

Blood work - I'm punting on that one!

Adjuvant - chemo treatment that follows surgical removal of all the cancer they can find -- it generally refers to treatment done when the patient is presumably cancer free
Neo-adjuvant - chemo that is done prior to surgery both to potentially shrink any known lesions and also to offer some systemic treatment to prevent new lesions from cropping up

Resection - surgically removing a big chunk of something - like your colon or your liver. It offers the best potential for a curative surgery because they can usually take out the cancer, and also some buffer zone tissue which is referred to as the "margin."

Margins - the amount of cancer free tissue surrounding the tumor - they determine this when the resected tissue is sent to the pathology lab
Radial margin - the amount of chest wall that was left cancer free

RFA - Radio Frequency Ablation - this is a localized treatment for tumors where a probe is inserted into the tumor and heated with radio waves to cook the cancer to death. It is often done when the lesions in question cannot be resected for some reason.
Cryoablation - same idea as RFA, but they freeze the tumor instead of cooking it

I'm pasting in stuff from others' posts

ADL = activities of daily life (eating, dressing, showering, etc.)
MBC = metastatic breast cancer
TNM = an attempt at universal staging evaluation that attempts to unify across countries analysis tumors and extent of spread of disease. T refers to tumor and can be modified X-4, N refers to node involvement and is modified X-2 and M refers to metastasis to distant organs, modified X, 1 or 0. The number that follows T or N indicates severity; X indicates it can't be assessed yet, and the number that follows M indicates presence (X for not assessed, 1 for present, 0 for not present.). It will be types out as TnNnMn.
T4N2M1 means tumor spread to distant organs, node involvement to 4 or more regional lymph nodes, mets-yes and is equal to a Stage IV diagnosis. More explanation of the TNM system: http://cancerstaging.blogspot.com/2005/ ... ectum.html

Bloodwork:
CBC: Complete blood count, including both hematology and serum chemistry analysis. Hematology can usually be run quickly, and checks things like white counts and red blood cell counts. Serum chem analysis takes longer (the machine runs more slowly.)

TPN = total parenteral nutrition, or nutrient liquid delivered via IV or PICC line.

CR = Complete response to chemotherapy
PR = Partial response to chemotherapy
PD = Progressive disease while on chemotherapy

Refractory - resistant or unresponsive to various chemotherapy treatments

onc = our little term to mean oncologist

palliative = treatments necessary to make patient more comfortable or have less pain

I 'weeded out' some terms specific to colorectal cancer, but still some may have slipped through. Any additions would be GREAT!

Hugs, Kathi
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Comments

  • RE
    RE Member Posts: 4,591 Member
    GOOD TO KNOW
    Good morning Kathi, heh thanks for the info. I've been around for awhile and just the other day someone used NED in chat and I was mystified! Hope your day is a lovely one.

    RE
  • chenheart
    chenheart Member Posts: 5,159 Member
    Thanks Kathi!
    Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious!!!!!!!!!


    Thanks for the Glossary....quite a labor of love you performed!

    Hugs,
    Claudia
  • Eil4186
    Eil4186 Member Posts: 949
    Thanks
    Thanks Kathi for taking the time to do this for us!
  • mmontero38
    mmontero38 Member Posts: 1,510
    Thanks Kathi. These
    Thanks Kathi. These abbreviations were great. Hugs, Lili
  • KathiM
    KathiM Member Posts: 8,028 Member
    For the 'newbies'...
    I thought I'd bring this back to the top,

    Hugs, Kathi
  • ACFL
    ACFL Member Posts: 2
    Great information
    Thank you for putting this up!

    Hope all is well!
  • carkris
    carkris Member Posts: 4,553 Member
    ACFL said:

    Great information
    Thank you for putting this up!

    Hope all is well!

    bumping this up for the
    bumping this up for the newbies
  • VickiSam
    VickiSam Member Posts: 9,079 Member
    carkris said:

    bumping this up for the
    bumping this up for the newbies

    Thank Carkris .. You learn something
    new everyday ... Thank you for bumping this up ...


    Vicki Sam
  • outdoorgirl
    outdoorgirl Member Posts: 1,565
    Kathi,
    that is awesome-thanks for all the time and work that went into that for everyone!
  • carkris
    carkris Member Posts: 4,553 Member

    Kathi,
    that is awesome-thanks for all the time and work that went into that for everyone!

    Bumping up again for the
    Bumping up again for the newbies!
  • racergirl
    racergirl Member Posts: 50
    Funny I just asked about NED on
    another post. Thank you for the information I have copied and pasted it to a word document so that I will have it for the future.
  • heidijez
    heidijez Member Posts: 441
    this is a fantastic document!!
    i love how someone answers the questions that i didn't even realize i had!!! very helpful, i will print out and put in my journal for future reference!
  • carkris
    carkris Member Posts: 4,553 Member
    heidijez said:

    this is a fantastic document!!
    i love how someone answers the questions that i didn't even realize i had!!! very helpful, i will print out and put in my journal for future reference!

    thanks to kathi!

    thanks to kathi!
  • Bella Luna
    Bella Luna Member Posts: 1,578 Member
    Thank You
    Kathi... Thank You so Much for breaking all the medical lingo for Us! This is so helpful. I am going to save this under favorites!
    BL
  • KathiM
    KathiM Member Posts: 8,028 Member
    carkris said:

    thanks to kathi!

    thanks to kathi!

    Wow! 2008.....
    I WAS a 'newbie'....well, sort of...ROFL!

    Glad it's helping!

    Thank you, my dear, for the bump...such kind thinking for all of the new ones...it CAN be confusing!!!

    Hugs, Kathi
  • KathiM
    KathiM Member Posts: 8,028 Member
    I thought I'd bump this one more time...
    Hugs, Kathi
  • Sher43009
    Sher43009 Member Posts: 602 Member
    KathiM said:

    I thought I'd bump this one more time...
    Hugs, Kathi

    Thanks for bringing this back.
    In Dec. 2008 I was not aware I'd ever need this list.
  • KathiM
    KathiM Member Posts: 8,028 Member
    Sher43009 said:

    Thanks for bringing this back.
    In Dec. 2008 I was not aware I'd ever need this list.

    It seems like a lifetime ago.....
    I was not fortunate enough to find this site during my first cancer, but did during my second....

    I have met so many wonderful people....some in cyber space, some in 'real' space!!!

    Hugs, Kathi
  • cinnamonsmile
    cinnamonsmile Member Posts: 1,187 Member
    Bumping up for Pat and other

    Bumping up for Pat and other newcomers with questions on abbreviations

  • lynn1950
    lynn1950 Member Posts: 2,570
    Abbreviations...Hope this helps

    I'm bumping this up for newer members.  Hope it helps.  xoxoxo Lynn