Indolent tumor

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Literally translated, indolent means “painless” and this is the most common use of the word.

Most benign tumors are painless; even among the inflammatory tumors there are those that are usually painless, such as tuberculous lymphomas (swollen lymph nodes).

When describing malignant tumors - not entirely understandable in terms of the language - indolent is sometimes equated with "slowly growing" or "not very aggressive".

In the characterization of malignant lymphoma is indolent used uniformly. The totality of malignant lymphomas is divided into two groups: one is "low-malignant" or "indolent", the other is "highly malignant" or "aggressive".

For the other malignant tumors, the distinction between “indolent” and “non-indolent” is fluid and ambiguous, if “indolent” is not actually used as “painless”. Of the various definitions for indolent tumors , the following three are common:

  • A tumor with which the patient can survive for at least five years even without therapy.
  • A tumor with a measured tumor doubling time greater than 400 days.
  • A tumor that does not endanger the patient because the patient dies beforehand from another cause of death.

In recent years, the term has indolent tumor (in the meaning of "hardly in need of treatment") in connection with the discussion on cancer screening ( screening achieved) more important.

Critics of preventive examinations argue that these examinations reveal an increased proportion of indolent tumors that are histologically considered to be malignant. In the treatment of such indolent tumors there is a risk that the patient will be inflicted more harm than good ("overdiagnosis" / overtreatment ). In lung cancer screening using computed tomography (CT), for example, the proportion of indolent tumors in newly discovered bronchial carcinomas is estimated to be up to 25% and higher.

Others deny the existence of a large number of indolent bronchial carcinomas. They counter that many patients die after a few years if they are accidentally discovered to have asymptomatic bronchial carcinoma in the early stages and they are not receiving any therapy.

Large studies are currently underway in the USA and other countries that are intended to clarify the sense and nonsense of lung cancer screenings using computed tomography - also with regard to indolent carcinomas (roughly equivalent to: "Carcinoma with little clinical relevance / importance") As of May 2008).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SA Pileri et al.: Indolent lymphoma: the pathologist's viewpoint. In: Annals of Oncology 15/2004, pp. 12-18. PMID 14679113

literature

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