Report term decoder
A cancer report can be full of unfamiliar words. Paste the wording from your pathology, lab, or imaging report — or look up a single term — and we’ll explain what each phrase means in plain language. We cover 151 terms across biopsy findings, blood counts, tumor markers, scan language, and stage and grade.
Please read: This tool explains general report language and cannot interpret your personal report, diagnose a condition, judge how serious a result is, or recommend treatment. Only your care team can do that.
Your text never leaves your device. Everything runs privately in your browser — nothing you paste or type is sent anywhere, saved, or seen by us.
We highlight the terms we recognize and explain each one in plain language. We do not store what you paste.
Turn what you read into questions
These explanations describe report language in general. The best next step is to bring your questions to the team who can interpret your actual report.
Every report term, explained
Prefer a page you can open, read, and share? Each of our 151 terms has its own plain-language explainer that answers “what does this mean on a report?”
Biopsy & pathology
- Adenoma / polyp
- Atypia
- Barrett esophagus
- Benign
- Biopsy
- Carcinoma
- Circumferential resection margin (CRM)
- Clear cell
- Clinical history
- Close margin
- Cytology
- Differentiation
- Ductal carcinoma
- Dysplasia
- Frozen section
- Gross description
- Hyperplasia
- Immunohistochemistry
- In situ
- Invasive
- Keratinizing
- Ki-67
- Lobular carcinoma
- Lymphovascular invasion
- Malignant
- Margin
- Metaplasia
- Microcalcifications
- Microinvasion
- Mitotic rate
- Moderately differentiated
- Mucinous
- Necrosis
- Negative margin
- Papillary
- Pathology report
- Perineural invasion
- Poorly differentiated
- Positive margin
- Residual tumor
- Sarcoma
- Sentinel lymph node
- Signet ring cells
- Specimen
- Tumor budding
- Tumor size
- Well differentiated
Receptors & markers
Blood counts
- Absolute neutrophil count (ANC)
- Albumin
- Anemia
- Blasts
- Calcium
- Complete blood count (CBC)
- Creatinine
- CRP / ESR
- Differential
- Electrolytes
- Ferritin / iron studies
- Hematocrit (Hct)
- Hemoglobin (Hgb)
- INR / PT / PTT
- Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH)
- Liver enzymes (AST/ALT)
- Metabolic panel (CMP/BMP)
- Neutropenia
- Platelets (PLT)
- Red blood cells (RBC)
- Reference range
- Thrombocytopenia
- Uric acid
- White blood cells (WBC)
Tumor markers
Scan & imaging
- Artifact
- BI-RADS
- Clinical correlation recommended
- Cystic / solid
- Effusion
- Enhancement
- Ground-glass opacity
- Hypodense / hyperdense
- Hypoechoic / hyperechoic
- Incidental finding
- Indeterminate
- Interval change
- Lesion
- Lung-RADS
- Lymphadenopathy
- Mass
- Metastasis
- Nodule
- Opacity
- PI-RADS
- RECIST
- Restricted diffusion
- Sclerotic / lytic lesion
- Spiculated
- Suspicious
- SUV (PET scan)
- TI-RADS
- Unremarkable
- Well-circumscribed
Stage & grade
Looking for a single everyday word? Try the glossary. Getting ready for a visit? See Prepare for your appointment.
How this page was created
Cancer Explained does not originate medical claims. Every page restates guidance already published by the National Cancer Institute, the CDC, the USPSTF and the FDA, in plain language, with the source cited so you can check the original yourself. AI does the translating and organizing; automated checks test claims, citations, clarity and safety before anything publishes. We do not employ clinicians and do not intend to — our work is translation and navigation, not clinical judgment. Nothing here is personal medical advice, and no page can account for your particular situation.
Editorial status: Source checked — This page was written with AI assistance and checked line by line against the sources listed on it. That confirms the sources support what the page says. It is not a medical review, and it does not confirm the page is complete or right for your situation.
Human medical review: not completed. Pages here are not signed off by a clinician before they publish. That is not an oversight we are quietly working around: we restate published guidance and cite it, so the authority belongs to the source rather than to us, and every page names where its claims come from — you can verify us instead of trusting us. Where a volunteer clinician has reviewed a page, their name and credentials appear on it; where no name appears, no clinician has checked it. We are glad to have reviewers and are recruiting them, and we do not hold pages back waiting for one. Use this site to understand your situation and to ask better questions of the people treating you.
Read more about our editorial process, our use of AI, and our corrections policy.
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