Word: polyp
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Even so, cancer is hardly inevitable. For example, 50% of Americans will develop at least one precancerous polyp in their colon at some point, but only a fraction of such polyps will develop into aggressive tumors. Why? Usually it takes so long for colon cancer to unfold that most people end up dying of ! other causes. Indeed, contrary to popular perception, getting cancer is not at all easy. To begin with, a cell must accumulate mutations not in just one or two genes but in several. In the case of colon cancer, Dr. Bert Vogelstein and his colleagues at Baltimore...
...ultimate medical nightmare. You slip under the anesthesia confident that your problem will be solved with some simple procedure -- a polyp excision, for example, or tubal ligation. But when you wake up you find your breasts are missing or your intestine now terminates in a plastic bag. Too bad we had the wrong patient, the surgeons shrug, because the operation went beautifully...