Intended for healthcare professionals

Letters The cancer label

Low risk cancer: recalibrate rather than just rename?

BMJ 2018; 363 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4211 (Published 09 October 2018) Cite this as: BMJ 2018;363:k4211
  1. Murali Varma, consultant histopathologist
  1. University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff CF14 4XW, UK
  1. varmam{at}cardiff.ac.uk

The controversy about renaming some low risk cancers1 is partly related to the perception of “benign” and “malignant” as biologically distinct conditions, when there is a continuum of increasing risk from benign to “good cancer” and “bad cancer.”2

The distinction between good and bad cancer is generally accepted to be arbitrary, with any risk of metastasis …

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