Conditions

Cancer

Also Known As Malignant Neoplastic Disease

General Class

Citation Formats

General Reference

Medicine Atlas. "Cancer." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://medicine.interactiveatlas.org/conditions/cancer.

APA Style

Medicine Atlas. (n.d.). Cancer. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://medicine.interactiveatlas.org/conditions/cancer

BibTeX

@misc{medicineatlas-cancer,
  author = {Medicine Atlas},
  title = {Cancer},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://medicine.interactiveatlas.org/conditions/cancer},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The general class of diseases in which abnormal cells divide uncontrollably and can invade and spread to other parts of the body, arising from accumulated mutations in the genes that regulate cell growth and division. Descriptions of tumors appear in the Egyptian Edwin Smith Papyrus, circa 1600 BCE; the Greek physician Hippocrates, around 400 BCE, is credited with naming the disease karkinos, crab, for the crab-like appearance of a tumor's spreading veins, later Latinized as cancer by the Roman physician Celsus. This atlas records cancer as a general class alongside the specific treatments developed against it, chemotherapy and radiotherapy chief among them, rather than minting one entity per cancer type, matching the same general-class discipline already applied to bacterial infection and cardiovascular disease.

Facts

Condition Class

neoplastic, chronic, genetic 1

First Described

1775 2

Marks Percivall Pott's 1775 identification of scrotal cancer in chimney sweeps as the first documented environmental or occupational cause of cancer, a landmark in understanding cancer causation, not the first description of the disease itself, which is ancient (see first-described-era).

First Described (Era)

Tumors are described in the Egyptian Edwin Smith Papyrus, circa 1600 BCE. Hippocrates named the disease karkinos, crab, circa 400 BCE; the Roman physician Celsus later Latinized the term as cancer. 2

Prevalence

Cancer was responsible for an estimated 10 million deaths in 2020, or nearly one in six deaths worldwide, according to World Health Organization data. 3

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Magnetic Resonance Imaging

MRI is a standard tool for detecting, staging and monitoring many soft-tissue tumors.

Source Raymond V. Damadian, M.D.: Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the Controversy of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Pathology

Virchow's cellular pathology established the modern framework for diagnosing cancer as a disease of cells, distinguishing cancer cells from normal cells under the microscope.

Source Rudolph Virchow, the father of cellular pathology

X-rays

X-ray imaging is foundational to cancer diagnosis and staging, and ionizing radiation itself became a cancer treatment, radiotherapy, within years of Rontgen's 1895 discovery.

Source The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of HumanityRoy Porter