When it comes to surgery for cancer, having a “positive margin” is a bad thing. It means that when the surgeon said he “got it all,” even though he meant it with all of his heart, likely he didn’t. For a woman undergoing a lumpectomy for breast cancer, that positive margin means a re-excision of… Continue reading The Way I See It
The great Greek physician and teacher Hippocrates (460 BC-370 BC) described several kinds of cancer, referring to them with the Greek word "carcinos", meaning crab or crayfish. This name comes from the appearance of the cut surface of a solid malignant tumor, with the "veins stretched out on all sides as the animal the crab has its feet, whence it derives its name."