Telangiectas-is refers to a condition in which the terminal portions of arteries, the capillaries, or the commencing parts of the veins are dilated and overfilled with blood, the process not being at tended with the usual signs of inflam mation. The term scirrhus, which means, literally, hard, is applied to an indurated tumor, the term being espe cially used in connection with cancers. In these cases the connective-tissue ele ments predominate over the cellular constituents. The opposite term is en cephaloid, medullary, or soft.
If a tumor is made up of two kinds of tissues, the variety which predominates in quantity or importance is named last. Thus, a tumor of the uterus composed one-third of unstriped muscular tissue and two-thirds of fibrous tissue would be called a myofibroma. A tumor which contains any elements of sarcomatous tissue, however, should have the word sarcoma as the terminus of its name.
By metastasis is meant the removal of characteristic portions of the tumor to some other part of the body and their independent growth in that situation, the daughter-growth possessing more or less the characteristics of the primary lesion. Infiltration is the diffusion of the con stituents of a tumor into the surround ing tissues or cavities.
Tumors are called malignant if they possess the properties of recurrence, me tastasis, or infiltration and destruction of the neighboring tissues; benign, or innocent, if they grow slowly, permitting the adjacent. organs to adapt themselves more or less completely to the presence of the foreign body, and lacking the properties just enumerated as belonging to malignancy. The situation of a new growth may determine whether it is malignant or not. Thus, a tumor in filtrating the brain might so derange cerebral functions as to render it malig nant, while if situated in the foot it might remain a localized affection, only interfering with locomotion.
General Considerations.—Tumors oc cur in all tissues, at all ages, and in all parts of the body, and are formed of cells which are more or less like those of nor mal tissue occurring during either intra uterine or extra-uterine life. They re ceive their blood-supply by connections Different kinds of tumors may be found in the same organ. It is even possible for a cancer and a sarcoma to exist as independent growths in the same person.
Thus, Coley (Annals of Surgery, Apr., 'PS) describes a case of cancer of the breast co-existing with sarcoma of the submaxillary region. Williams has col lected 11 such cases, and there are more with previously existing channels, which develop from sprouts formed by the pro liferating cells of the old blood-vessels. A round-celled infiltration is common. Division of cells takes place mostly by karyomitosis, which may be irregular in character. Tumors can usually be dif ferentiated by the naked eye from the surrounding tissues, but the infiltration is sometimes revealed only by micro scopical study.
Tumors may vary in weight up to 165 pounds or more. Their growth may be rapid or slow, covering a period of many years, with remissions and exacerbations.
of them to be found scattered throughout medical literature. Lannois and Cour mont (Rev. de Med., '9-I) give an inter esting account of two primary cancers occurring in the digestive tract of the same individual. Tumors, no doubt, have an internal secretion, though this secretion is of no use to the system. In rare cases a neoplasm may secrete one of ' the normal juices of the body; for ex ample, a tumor of the liver may produce a multiplication of the bile-ducts and biliary tubes which are capable of func tionating, or an ovarian tumor may form colloid material. Buell reported, in December, 1S99, to one of the sections of the College of Physicians of Philadel phia, a case of ovarian cyst associated with undoubted diabetes, in which re moval of the tumor caused a disappear ance of the glycosuria and other diabetic symptoms.
The shape of a tumor is influenced by its character, method of growth, situa tion, mechanical pressure, etc. Tumors may appear as uniform swellings, flat tabular swellings, tubers, nodes, or as fungoid, polypoid, papillomatous, den dritic, mushroom-like, sessile, pedun ciliated, cauliflower-like masses.
When tumors are deep-seated, we have: 1. Uniform swelling: (a) glioma; (b) lymphoma; (c) lymphangioma; (d) sar coma; (e) rhabdomyoma; (f) lympho sarcoma.
2. Nodes growing centrally: (a) fi broma; (b) myoma; (c) myofibroma; (d) rnyxoma; (e) adenoma; (f) osteoma; (g) chondroma; (h) secondary cancer and sarcoma.