What are the meanings of the words infiltrate, metastasis and recurrence?
One of the characteristics of a malignant cancer cell is that it tends to infiltrate other normal tissue. This occurs in one of the three ways: It can spread locally into adjoining tissue, spread the through the blood stream, or come back in the same area originally treated. Many types of cancer including ACC can spread by growing directly into adjoining normal tissue next to the tumor such as muscle, nerves or bone. Though it is relatively rare for ACC, it can also enter the adjoining lymph nodes and then begin the progression of growing from lymph node to lymph node. One of the more common methods ACC spreads is through metastasis using the circulatory system. Some of the cells from the primary tumor can break off and be carried to other regions of the body in the blood stream where they find a receptive location and begin to reproduce at this new site. Due to the high level of blood supply the lungs and liver are the most common sites for ACC metastatic spread. This creates new tumo
