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Acinic cell carcinoma is a salivary gland cancer, almost always of the parotid gland, whose cells resemble the gland's normal enzyme-making cells. It is usually low grade and slow, presenting as a painless lump that is easily mistaken for a benign tumour, and surgery cures most; a high-grade minority behaves aggressively and needs radiotherapy too.

Adamantinoma is a very rare, slow-growing bone cancer of young adults that almost always affects the shin bone, made of epithelial cells inside fibrous bone, and listed with the bone sarcomas in the WHO classification. It is cured by cutting it out with a margin; chemotherapy and radiotherapy do not work, and a minority spread to the lungs many years later.

Adenocarcinoma in situ and minimally invasive adenocarcinoma are the earliest forms of lung cancer of the adenocarcinoma type: small tumours, usually seen as ground-glass spots on a CT scan, that have not yet invaded, or have invaded less than five millimetres. When removed they are effectively cured, with no recurrences in the large series, so the question is how little surgery is enough.

Lung adenocarcinoma is the most common type of lung cancer and the form that non-smokers usually get; it starts in the mucus-making gland cells of the small airways, most often at the edge of the lung. It is the type in which testing for a driver mutation matters most, because half of cases have one that a tablet can target.

Adenocarcinoma of the urethra is a gland-forming type of urethral cancer, more often seen in women, that can start in the small glands beside the urethra or in a pouch (diverticulum) in its wall. The clear cell form is its own entity in the WHO classification. There are no trials, so it is treated by surgery with the parent page's approach to advanced disease.

Adenosquamous carcinoma of the cervix is an uncommon cervical cancer containing both gland-forming and squamous cancer cells. Like cervical adenocarcinoma it is caught less well by smear screening and does somewhat worse than squamous cancer stage for stage, but it is treated the same way, with surgery when early and chemoradiation when advanced.

Adenosquamous carcinoma is an uncommon lung cancer that contains both gland-forming and squamous cancer cells, each making up at least a tenth of the tumour. It behaves worse than either pure type, but its gland-forming part often carries an EGFR mutation, so it is tested and treated like adenocarcinoma.

Bartholin gland carcinoma is a very rare vulvar cancer arising in the lubricating glands at the entrance to the vagina, often mistaken at first for a cyst or abscess in a postmenopausal woman. It can be a squamous cancer, an adenocarcinoma or an adenoid cystic carcinoma, each behaving differently; it is treated with surgery and radiotherapy borrowed from vulvar cancer, having no trials of its own.

Basaloid squamous cell carcinoma is a variant of squamous lung cancer made of small, dark, tightly packed cells that grow in nests; it has a worse outlook than ordinary squamous cell carcinoma. It is treated the same way, and its high PD-L1 levels suggest immunotherapy should work, though no trial has tested it separately.

Burkitt leukaemia is Burkitt lymphoma presenting mainly in the bone marrow and blood, so that it looks like acute lymphoblastic leukaemia but is a mature B-cell cancer driven by the MYC gene. It is treated as Burkitt lymphoma, with short, very intensive chemotherapy plus rituximab and protection of the brain, and most children and many adults are cured.

Carcinoma ex pleomorphic adenoma is a salivary gland cancer that grows out of a long-standing benign pleomorphic adenoma, the commonest salivary tumour, usually in the parotid. Its outlook depends on how far the cancer has grown beyond the old adenoma's capsule: cancers still inside it are cured by surgery, while widely invasive ones need radiotherapy and do poorly.

Choriocarcinoma is the rarest and most dangerous form of non-seminoma testicular cancer, made of placenta-like cells that pour out the pregnancy hormone hCG and spread early through the blood to the lungs, liver and brain, where they can bleed. Fewer than eight in ten men survive five years, against more than 95 for testicular cancer overall, so it is treated urgently with intensive chemotherapy.

Choroid plexus carcinoma is a rare, aggressive brain tumour of infants and young children that grows from the tissue that makes spinal fluid inside the brain's ventricles, causing fluid build-up and pressure. It is strongly linked to an inherited TP53 fault (Li-Fraumeni syndrome), so families are tested; treatment is surgery, then chemotherapy and, in older children, radiotherapy.

Clear cell papillary renal cell tumour is a small, low-grade kidney tumour that looks like a mix of clear cell and papillary kidney cancer but behaves harmlessly: no case has been reported to spread. The WHO renamed it from carcinoma to tumour in 2022 for that reason. It is common in people with kidney failure and is cured by removing it.

Collecting duct carcinoma is a very rare, aggressive kidney cancer that starts in the tubes deep in the kidney that collect urine. It is usually found after it has spread, does not respond to the usual kidney cancer drugs, and is treated with the platinum chemotherapy used for bladder cancer, with surgery where possible.

Colon cancer is bowel cancer arising in the large bowel above the rectum. It shares its biology with colorectal cancer but is treated differently from rectal cancer: surgery comes first without radiotherapy, chemotherapy afterwards is decided by stage and increasingly by a blood test for leftover tumour DNA, and the side the tumour started on changes which drugs work once it has spread.

Conjunctival melanoma is a rare melanoma of the clear membrane over the white of the eye, usually growing out of a flat brown patch called primary acquired melanosis. It is removed with a margin and the edges frozen or treated with chemotherapy drops; about one in five spread within five years, and advanced disease is treated like skin melanoma with targeted or immune drugs.

A corticotroph tumour is a pituitary tumour of the cells that make ACTH. When it secretes it floods the body with cortisol, causing Cushing disease (weight gain, diabetes, high blood pressure, thin skin); the silent form is found as a large non-functioning mass. Surgery through the nose is the main treatment; cortisol-lowering drugs, repeat surgery or radiotherapy follow for those not cured.

Dedifferentiated chordoma is a rare form of chordoma in which part of the tumour has turned into a high-grade sarcoma, usually after recurrence or radiotherapy but sometimes from the start. The sarcoma component decides the outcome, which is much worse than ordinary chordoma, so it is treated with surgery and the chemotherapy used for high-grade sarcomas, not surgery and radiotherapy alone.

Desmoplastic small round cell tumour is a very rare, aggressive sarcoma of adolescents and young men that grows across the lining of the abdomen as many nodules, driven by a fusion of the EWSR1 and WT1 genes. It is treated with intensive chemotherapy, surgery to remove every nodule, sometimes heated chemotherapy into the abdomen, and radiotherapy, yet most patients relapse within three years.

Embryonal carcinoma is the most aggressive and most common building block of non-seminoma testicular cancer, made of primitive cells that resemble an early embryo and can turn into the other tumour types. On its own or as the main component it spreads early to lymph nodes and lungs, but it is highly sensitive to cisplatin chemotherapy and most men are cured.

Eosinophilic solid and cystic renal cell carcinoma is a recently named kidney cancer, almost always in women, made of pink cells in solid areas and cysts. It was first seen in people with tuberous sclerosis and then found on its own, it is nearly always confined to the kidney, and surgery cures it in almost every reported case.

MALT lymphoma is a slow-growing lymphoma that starts in lymphoid tissue lining an organ, most often the stomach, where it is usually caused by long-standing Helicobacter pylori infection and can be cured with antibiotics alone. Other sites include the eye socket, salivary glands, thyroid, lung and skin; localised disease is treated with low-dose radiotherapy and widespread disease with rituximab.

Fumarate hydratase-deficient renal cell carcinoma is a rare, aggressive kidney cancer in which the FH gene is lost, most often because the person was born with a faulty copy as part of the HLRCC syndrome, which also causes skin and womb fibroids. It strikes younger adults, is found by a stain for the missing enzyme, and needs family testing; advanced disease gets the usual kidney cancer drugs.

Germ cell neoplasia in situ is the pre-cancer of testicular germ cell tumours: abnormal fetal-type germ cells sitting inside the seminiferous tubules, which will become seminoma or non-seminoma if left. It is found beside almost every testicular cancer and sometimes on its own in the other testis, where low-dose radiotherapy or surgery prevents a second cancer.

Glucagonoma is a very rare pancreatic neuroendocrine tumour that pours out the hormone glucagon, causing weight loss, diabetes and a distinctive migrating red rash. Because the rash is so characteristic, spotting it early can lead to diagnosis before the tumour has spread to the liver; surgery is the definitive treatment and somatostatin analogues control the symptoms.

A gonadotroph tumour is a pituitary tumour of the cells that normally make the fertility hormones, but it almost never secretes enough to cause symptoms, so it is found as a large non-functioning mass pressing on the optic nerves or by chance. Surgery through the nose is the treatment when it threatens vision or grows; there is no drug for it, and radiotherapy is used for regrowth.

Hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma is a rare, very aggressive lymphoma of young men in which gamma-delta T cells fill the liver, spleen and bone marrow without forming lumps in the nodes. It is linked to long-term immune suppression, above all thiopurines with or without anti-TNF drugs for inflammatory bowel disease, and is treated with intensive chemotherapy then a stem cell transplant where possible.

Hyperparathyroidism-jaw tumour syndrome is an inherited condition in which a faulty CDC73 gene causes parathyroid tumours, and in about one in five people a parathyroid carcinoma, together with bony tumours of the jaw and kidney and womb growths. It matters because it is the commonest inherited route to parathyroid carcinoma and a reason to test the gene in anyone with that cancer.

Intravascular large B-cell lymphoma is a rare form of large B-cell lymphoma in which the cancer cells grow inside small blood vessels rather than forming lumps, so it causes fevers, confusion, skin patches or breathlessness and is often found late or only after death. Rituximab-based chemotherapy with drugs that reach the brain has turned a nearly always fatal disease into one often controlled.

Invasive carcinoma of no special type, still widely called invasive ductal carcinoma, is the ordinary form of breast cancer and by far the most common. The name means the tumour has no special pattern that would put it in one of the rarer types; everything on the main breast cancer page and its receptor subpages is written about this type unless it says otherwise.

Medullary carcinoma is a form of breast cancer with high-grade cells growing in sheets and a dense crowd of immune cells around them. It looks alarming under the microscope and is usually triple-negative, yet it has a better outlook than other triple-negative cancers. Since 2019 it is classed as invasive breast cancer with a medullary pattern and treated as triple-negative disease.

Invasive cribriform carcinoma is a rare, low-grade type of breast cancer whose cells grow in sieve-like nests, closely related to tubular carcinoma. In its pure form it has an excellent outlook, with no deaths from the cancer in the defining series, and it is treated like other hormone-driven breast cancer with the least treatment possible.

Invasive lobular carcinoma is the second most common type of breast cancer, about one in seven cases. Its cells have lost the glue protein E-cadherin, so they spread in single files rather than forming a lump, which makes it hard to see on mammograms and to measure. Almost all cases are hormone-receptor positive and are treated like other hormone-driven breast cancer.

Invasive micropapillary carcinoma is a rare type of breast cancer in which small clusters of cells float inside-out in empty spaces. It spreads to the lymph nodes far more often than ordinary breast cancer of the same size, but once that is allowed for its survival is similar, and it is treated by receptor status like other breast cancer, usually hormone-driven.

Invasive mucinous adenocarcinoma is a type of lung cancer whose cells look like stomach or bowel lining and fill the air spaces with mucus, often appearing as pneumonia-like shadows on a scan. Most cases carry a KRAS mutation, and many of the rest carry a gene fusion, including NRG1, that new drugs can target.

A prolactinoma is a pituitary tumour of the cells that make prolactin, the milk hormone; it is the commonest hormone-producing pituitary tumour and causes missed periods, infertility, milk production or, in men, low testosterone. Almost uniquely among tumours it is treated first with a tablet, cabergoline, which shrinks it in most people; surgery is kept for those the drug fails.

Large cell carcinoma is the name for a non-small-cell lung cancer whose cells look neither glandular nor squamous under the microscope. Since 2015 pathologists use protein stains to sort most of these tumours into adenocarcinoma or squamous cell carcinoma, so a true large cell diagnosis is now rare and is treated like adenocarcinoma.

Leydig cell tumour is the commonest testicular tumour that is not a germ cell tumour; it grows from the hormone-making cells between the seminiferous tubules. It often makes testosterone or oestrogen, causing early puberty in boys or breast growth in men, and about nine in ten are benign and cured by surgery; the malignant minority responds poorly to chemotherapy.

Lobular carcinoma in situ is not an invasive breast cancer but a marker that a woman is at higher risk of one: abnormal cells fill the milk-producing lobules without spreading. About one in five women develop breast cancer within ten years, in either breast and of any type; preventive tamoxifen cuts that to about one in fourteen, and the pleomorphic form is excised like ductal carcinoma in situ.

Lymphoepithelial carcinoma of the lung is a rare lung cancer, seen mostly in East Asian non-smokers, in which cancer cells sit in a dense crowd of immune cells and usually carry the Epstein-Barr virus, like nasopharyngeal cancer. It is treated as a squamous lung cancer, and its high PD-L1 levels have made immunotherapy a natural choice.

Lymphomatoid granulomatosis is a rare Epstein-Barr virus-driven disease of B cells that invades and destroys blood vessels, almost always in the lungs and often the brain and skin, in people whose immune control of the virus is weak. Low-grade disease can be treated with interferon and high-grade disease as a large B-cell lymphoma with rituximab-based chemotherapy.

A mediastinal germ cell tumour is a germ cell tumour that starts in the chest, between the lungs, rather than in the testis. Seminomas here are cured almost as often as testicular seminoma, but non-seminomas of the chest are the hardest germ cell tumours to cure, so they get four cycles of chemotherapy and surgery for what is left.

Medullary carcinoma is a very rare form of bowel cancer in which sheets of poorly formed cells are packed with immune cells; almost all cases are mismatch-repair deficient and it occurs mostly in older women on the right side. Despite its ugly appearance it does at least as well as ordinary bowel cancer, and because of its immune features it is a natural candidate for immunotherapy.

Melanoma of the urethra is a very rare urethral cancer that starts in pigment cells of the urethral lining, usually near its outer opening, in older adults. It is a form of mucosal melanoma, so it is removed surgically and, when it spreads, treated with the immunotherapy drugs used for melanoma elsewhere.

Micronodular thymoma with lymphoid stroma is a rare, benign-behaving thymoma made of small nests of spindle-shaped epithelial cells separated by abundant B lymphocytes, unlike other thymomas whose lymphocytes are T cells. It is cured by surgery; its curiosity is that a third harbour a clonal B-cell population, and a few develop a low-grade lymphoma within the tumour.

Mixed-phenotype acute leukaemia is a rare acute leukaemia whose cells carry markers of both lymphoid and myeloid lines, so it fits neither acute lymphoblastic nor acute myeloid leukaemia. Pooled evidence favours starting with the drugs used for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, adding a targeted drug when the Philadelphia chromosome is present, and a stem cell transplant in first remission.

Mucinous adenocarcinoma is a form of bowel cancer, about one in ten cases, in which more than half the tumour is made of mucus produced by the cancer cells. It favours the right side of the colon, is often mismatch-repair deficient, tends to be found at a later stage and does somewhat worse than ordinary bowel cancer, but it is treated the same way.

Mucinous carcinoma is a rare type of breast cancer in which the cancer cells float in pools of mucus they have made. It is usually hormone-receptor positive, slow-growing and less likely to reach the lymph nodes than ordinary breast cancer, so its outlook is good and it is treated like other hormone-driven breast cancer.

Mucinous tubular and spindle cell carcinoma is a rare, usually slow-growing kidney cancer, commoner in women, whose cells form small tubes and spindles in a mucus-rich background. It is driven by loss of the Hippo growth-control pathway rather than the faults of common kidney cancer, and surgery cures most cases.

MEN1 is an inherited condition, one of the multiple endocrine neoplasia syndromes, in which a faulty MEN1 gene lets tumours grow in the parathyroid glands, the pancreas and the pituitary. Each tumour is treated much as it would be in anyone else, but because there are many of them and they come back, families are followed for life in specialist clinics.

MEN2 is an inherited condition, one of the multiple endocrine neoplasia syndromes, in which a faulty RET gene causes medullary thyroid cancer in almost every carrier, often with adrenal tumours and overactive parathyroids. Because the thyroid cancer is so predictable, children who inherit the gene have the thyroid removed at an age set by which RET mutation they carry.

Myeloid leukaemia of Down syndrome is a form of acute myeloid leukaemia in young children with Down syndrome, driven by a GATA1 mutation on top of the extra chromosome 21 and often preceded by a transient leukaemia-like illness in the newborn. Its cells are unusually sensitive to chemotherapy, so children are cured about nine times in ten with gentler treatment than other childhood leukaemia.

Neuroendocrine neoplasms of the breast are rare breast cancers whose cells make hormone-like granules, ranging from slow-growing tumours to small cell carcinoma like that of the lung. They are easily mistaken for ordinary breast cancer or for spread from elsewhere; slow-growing forms are treated like hormone-driven breast cancer and small cell forms with the lung small cell regimens.

Nodal marginal zone lymphoma is a slow-growing lymphoma of the lymph nodes that looks like the MALT and splenic types under the microscope but has no organ or spleen involvement to explain it. It lacks a diagnostic marker, so it is diagnosed by excluding the other small B-cell lymphomas, and it is treated like follicular lymphoma with rituximab-based therapy.

Angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma, now called nodal T-follicular helper cell lymphoma of angioimmunoblastic type, is one of the commonest T-cell lymphomas and mostly affects people over 60. It presents with widespread swollen nodes, fever, rash and immune upsets such as anaemia; about four in ten people are alive five years after chemotherapy, more after a transplant in first remission.

Optic pathway glioma is a slow-growing childhood brain tumour of the nerves that carry sight, often in children with neurofibromatosis type 1. It rarely kills but can take away vision, so treatment aims to preserve sight: watching if stable, chemotherapy such as carboplatin and vincristine if vision is threatened, or the MEK-blocking tablet selumetinib, with radiotherapy avoided in young children.

Papillary carcinomas are rare breast cancers, about one in a hundred, that grow as finger-like fronds on stalks, often inside a cyst, mostly in older women. The encapsulated and solid forms behave almost like non-invasive disease and have an excellent outlook; the truly invasive papillary form is treated like ordinary hormone-driven breast cancer.

Papillary tumour of the pineal region is a rare brain tumour of young adults arising near the pineal gland from cells of the embryonic subcommissural organ. It usually presents with raised pressure from blocked spinal fluid, is removed surgically and often given radiotherapy, and it has a marked tendency to come back locally.

Pineoblastoma is a rare, aggressive brain tumour of the pineal gland, mostly in children, made of primitive cells like those of medulloblastoma. It is treated with surgery, radiotherapy to the whole brain and spine in children old enough, and chemotherapy; infants do worst, and molecular subgroups discovered in 2020, including ones linked to the DICER1 gene, are starting to guide treatment.