What is heterogeneous in medical terms?
Heterogeneous refers to a structure with dissimilar components or elements, appearing irregular or variegated. For example, a dermoid cyst has heterogeneous attenuation on CT. It is the antonym for homogeneous, meaning a structure with similar components.
Does heterogeneous mean cancer?
Cancer is a heterogeneous disease. Practically from the moment pathologists first looked at human cancers under the microscope, they saw that differing histologic appearances could define distinct subtypes of cancers from the same primary site of origin.
What causes heterogeneous?
Allelic heterogeneity occurs when different variants at a single gene locus cause the same or similar phenotypic expressions of a disease or condition. Locus heterogeneity occurs when variants at different gene loci cause the same or similar phenotypic expressions of a disease or condition.
Why is cancer a heterogeneous disease?
This heterogeneity is due to two major processes: the selective nature of the metastatic process, and the rapid evolution and phenotypic diversification of clonal tumor cell populations during progressive tumor growth resulting from inherent genetic and epigenetic instability of many clonal populations of tumor cells.
Is heterogeneity good or bad?
Heterogeneity and its opposite, homogeneity, refer to how consistent or stable a particular data set or variable relationship are. Having statistical heterogeneity is not a good or bad thing in and of itself for the analysis; however, it’s useful to know to design, choose and interpret statistical analyses.
Why is heterogeneity a problem?
Reasons for heterogeneity, other than clinical differences, could include methodological issues such as problems with randomisation, early termination of trials, use of absolute rather than relative measures of risk, and publication bias.
What is heterogeneous give example?
Mixtures in two or more phases are heterogeneous mixtures. Examples include ice cubes in a drink, sand and water, and salt and oil. For example, you can make a homogeneous solution of sugar and water, but if there are crystals in the solution, it becomes a heterogeneous mixture.
Are malignant tumors heterogeneous?
Clonal heterogeneity within primary tumors is only one of the aspects of clonal heterogeneity of cancers. Cancer is a systemic disease: malignant cancers shed large numbers of cells into the blood stream and lymph vessels; some of these cells settle down in distant sites and develop into metastases.