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Does dysplasia mean invasive cancer?
Make it clearer
Dysplasia turns up when someone looks at a piece of tissue under the microscope and the cells no longer look the way they should: their shape changes, their size changes, and they sit in an arrangement without the order they normally line up in. It's like a tiled floor where several tiles ended up crooked and stopped following the line of the rest.
Seeing dysplasia is not the same as finding an invasive cancer, the kind that has already broken through the boundaries of the tissue: some dysplasias move forward over time and others stay right where they are. When a grade is assigned, that grade answers two things, how far those cells have drifted from their normal appearance and how much of the tissue has been drawn into the change.
In brief
Dysplasia is a microscopic change in which cells look abnormal and the tissue loses some of its usual organization.
The change is not limited to individual cells: it also affects the order in which those cells form the tissue.
By itself, dysplasia does not mean invasive cancer; some types can progress, while others do not.
When grades are used, they describe how abnormal the cells look and how much of the tissue is affected.
Sources (2)
- National Cancer InstituteDefinition of dysplasia
- National Cancer InstituteWhat Is Cancer?Published
This page explains the topic in general terms; it does not tell anyone what treatment to follow.
Updated