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metastasis

metastasis

4 7.8
A disease like cancer that spreads from one part of the body to another
  • noun
  • /məˈtæs.tə.sɪs/
  • Specialized
translation icon : metástasis
  • Despite treatment, the patient died of progressive metastasis to the lung 4 months later.
  • distant metastasis
  • node metastasis
  • lymph node metastasis

Examples

  • After radical surgery, locally progressive disease or distant metastasis are the main sites of recurrence.

    Academic text (1995)
  • To the best of our knowledge, no case of regional or distant metastasis has been documented.

    Academic text (2005)
  • We have to remove it now, or we risk metastasis.

  • All patients who presented with regional metastasis died of disease during follow-up.

    Academic text (2005)
  • None of our patients developed a recurrence or metastasis following final treatment.

    Academic text (2005)
  • The cause of death is given as "cancer of right breast with metastasis to left breast/left hip/spine."

    Fiction book (1997)
  • The most common sites of metastasis are the lung, regional lymph nodes, liver, and bone.

    Academic text (2001)
  • Your lymph nodes are involved and your blood markers indicate evidence of distant metastasis.

  • All of these orangish blobs here are metastases from a pancreatic cancer.

  • The major cause of death from cancer is metastasis, the disease's spread within the body.

Compounds

risk of metastasis
  • Specialized
5.8

The chance that cancer cells spread from their original place to other parts of the body

How Widespread

carcinomatosis
  • Specialized
1 9.9
metastasis
  • Specialized
4 7.8
benign tumor
  • Specialized
3 3.4

Surface Forms

metastasis singular
metastases plural

Morphology

metastasis = stasis (opaque) = meta + stasis

Although the word is historically built from meta- plus stasis, the medical sense 'spread of disease' is not directly guessable from the component meanings for most learners.

Etymology

The word metastasis comes from Greek parts meta- 'change' and -stasis 'standing' or 'place', and you can see 'change' in metamorphosis and 'standing' in words like static. So a metastasis is literally a 'change of place', and in medicine it means a disease such as cancer moving or spreading to another part of the body.