Malignancy

The term malignancy (Latin malignitas, malignancy ',' envy ') is used in medicine to characterize a disease or disease process that affects progressively destructive and potentially can lead to the death of the patient.

It is often used in reference to tumors for the identification of a tumor, which is able to penetrate the basement membrane, and form secondary tumors. Such a tumor is colloquially referred to as cancer. Depending on the ability of tumors / tumor cells to develop such metastases, a distinction is low grade and high -malignant tumors. Moreover, the term is also used in relation to epileptic seizures and metabolic disorders (eg, malignant obesity, malignant hyperthermia); also in psychiatry he comes as neuroleptic malignant syndrome, malignant catatonia before etc.. The semimalignancy (Latin semi, semi ' ) denotes the reduced malignancy of an illness or a disease process. The opposite of malignancy is the benign ( benign nature ).