Surgical Consultants of Hollywood are experts in the surgical removal of masses or tumors located on or in any organ within the abdomen.
What is a tumor?
A tumor is an abnormal tissue growth somewhere in the body. Normal tissue is made up of cells that are replaced as they age and die. If the process for replacing old cells with new cells does not wok properly, new cells will be created when they are not required forming a growth of unneeded cell called a tumor, a mass, or sometimes a neoplasm.
Tumors can be cancerous or non cancerous. Cancerous tumors are referred to as malignant while non-cancerous tumors are called benign.
Benign tumors grow in one place and do not spread like malignant ones can. Once a benign mass is removed it usually does not grow back. Malignant tumors are more aggressive and often require chemical therapies or radiation as well as surgery to treat them.
Even though benign tumors are not as problematic as malignant ones, they can grow large enough to interfere with the normal functions of the organs where they are located or block blood vessels creating a serious medical problem..
Benign and malignant tumors are composed of different types of tissue. However, it is difficult to tell whether a tumor is benign or malignant without taking a sample of it and looking closely at the tissue under a microscope. Removing a small piece of tissue to see if it benign or malignant is called a biopsy.
Useful Definitions
- Neoplasm: New growth of tissue that grows faster than normal cells and continues to get larger if not treated. These abnormal growths compete with normal cells for nutrients.
- Tumor: The more commonly used term for a neoplasm. Tumor simply means mass and can refer to both cancerous or non-cancerous growths
- Benign Tumor: A non-cancerous tumor. A benign tumor is usually localized, rarely spreads to other parts of the body and responds well to treatment. If left untreated they can become larger and lead to other problem medical conditions.
- Malignant Tumor: A cancerous tumor or simply a cancer. Malignant tumors are more difficult to treat and may spread to other parts of the body or recur after removal.
- Cancer: A malignant tumor (a malignant neoplasm).
What is surgical tumor removal?
Surgery as part of tumor treatment has one of two main purposes:
Diagnostic tumor removal:
Part or all of a tumor may be removed so that a biopsy can be performed to find out if the tumor is cancerous or non cancerous.
Therapeutic removal
Tumor removal may be performed for both cancerous and non-cancerous tumors. Care is taken to remove the entire tumor so parts of the surrounding healthy tissue are often removed also to ensure that none of the tumor cells are let behind.
On large tumors, surgery may be required to debulk it or make it smaller. This is designed to assist other therapies to be more effective.