# Intra-tumour heterogeneity

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/intra-tumour-heterogeneity/  
OnCo record `intra-tumour-heterogeneity` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Cells within one tumour can differ in their genes, appearance and behaviour, so a single biopsy may not represent the whole cancer.

## Summary

Tumour heterogeneity, per Wikipedia, is the observation that tumour cells show distinct morphological and phenotypic profiles (gene expression, metabolism, proliferation, metastatic potential) both between tumours and within a single tumour. Within-tumour heterogeneity is why one section can carry several molecular subtypes and a spread of predicted risk, and why single-sample predictions carry an irreducible uncertainty.

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-09-24
- Also known as: intra-tumour heterogeneity; intratumour heterogeneity; intratumoral heterogeneity; intra-tumor heterogeneity; ITH
- Tags: cansim-terms

## Notes

- Listed in the CanSim terms map 1.0.0 (docs/onco/terms.json, generated 2026-09-24), CC BY 4.0, attribution: CanSim project, an open, public-data-first cancer foundation-model programme; CanSim page path /terms/intra-tumour-heterogeneity.

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumour_heterogeneity
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumour_heterogeneity

## Connected records

- bottlenecks: [Tumour heterogeneity and clonal evolution](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-tumor-heterogeneity/)
- terms: [Cancer AI vocabulary (CanSim terms map)](https://onco.cc/terms/cancer-ai-vocabulary/), [Clonal evolution and the ecological view of cancer](https://onco.cc/terms/clonal-evolution-theory/), [Tumour evolution (somatic evolution)](https://onco.cc/terms/tumour-evolution/)
- pathways: [Clonal evolution & minimal residual disease](https://onco.cc/pathways/clonal-evolution/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/intra-tumour-heterogeneity.json