carcinoma
n. C / Un. a type of cancer that starts in the skin or in the tissues that line your organs.
n. a malignant tumour arising from epithelial tissue. It represents the most common form of cancer and spreads via the lymphatic system or bloodstream.
The doctor explained that the carcinoma was caught in its early stages.
After the biopsy results came back, the patient was diagnosed with a basal cell carcinoma on his shoulder.
While some forms of carcinoma remain localized and are easily treated with minor surgery, others exhibit aggressive metastatic behavior that requires a combination of chemotherapy and radiation.
Learned borrowing from Latin carcinōma (“tumour; ulcer; carcinoma”), from Ancient Greek κᾰρκῐ́νωμᾰ (kărkĭ́nōmă, “sore, ulcer; cancer”), from καρκινόω (karkinóō, “to make (something) resemble a crab”, in the mediopassive "to become cancerous; to suffer from cancer") + -μᾰ (-mă, action noun suffix). Καρκινόω is derived from καρκῐ́νος (karkĭ́nos, “crab; the zodiac sign Cancer; sore, ulcer; cancer”) (according to Paul of Aegina (c. 625 – c. 690) in his Medical Compendium in Seven Books, because the veins surrounding a cancerous tumour resemble a crab’s legs). The English word is a doublet of cancer, and may be analysed as carcino- + -oma. The plural form carcinomata is a learned borrowing from Latin carcinōmata, from Ancient Greek κᾰρκῐνώμᾰτᾰ (kărkĭnṓmătă).
Uncountable when referring to the disease generally; countable when referring to specific tumors or medical cases.