Many patients in the clinic may misunderstand the words “lesion” and “possible”, so today I will explain the terminology to you. Lesion = cancer? Many people come to the clinic and tell me that when they see the word “lesion” in the report, their feet get weak and they can’t sleep at night. “Doctor, do I have cancer?” I sometimes laugh and cry when I see the word “lesion” in the report. Obviously, this is a misunderstanding caused by the different language systems used by the general public and doctors, which makes it impossible for them to communicate smoothly. What exactly is the medical term “lesion”? A lesion is short for a pathological change, a change in tissue or cells caused by a disease. This concept is very broad, and can be caused by benign or malignant diseases, and the changes can be reversible or irreversible. In short, colds and cancers are both lesions, just different in nature. In itself, “lesion” is only a neutral and objective description. A lesion is not necessarily a cancer, but a cancer is definitely a kind of lesion. A special type of lesion: precancerous lesion When you see the word “precancerous”, you probably start to label it again. First, let’s look at its definition: the intermediate stage from normal tissue to cancer is called precancerous lesion. The occurrence of malignant tumor is a gradual evolutionary process. Some benign diseases in some organs of human body are prone to abnormal cell proliferation with the tendency of malignant changes, and these abnormal proliferations with the tendency of cancerous changes are called precancerous lesions. Please note that precancerous lesions are not directly equal to cancer, nor do we say that they will definitely develop into cancer. Although it seems that there is only one step from precancerous lesions to cancer, this step may not be crossed in a lifetime. It just stays at the precancerous stage, which is different from cancer, and the treatment treatment is completely different from cancer. As far as breast enlargement is concerned, only abnormal and atypical enlargement belongs to the category of precancerous lesions. Most hyperplasia is still a common lesion. The word “possible” in the report “Doctor, look! This is another typical misunderstanding. This is another typical misunderstanding. The word “possible” appears at the end of the report of any auxiliary examination, which is not a reflection of the doctor’s lack of ability to determine the disease, but rather a reflection of the rigorous professionalism of the reporting doctor. Listen to me in detail: any auxiliary examination is to use certain principles of imaging to compare the images of those pathologically confirmed diseases and make a prediction of the disease. But even the most complex and advanced examination equipment can only make the diagnosis infinitely close to 100% correct, but can never reach 100%. There is only one accepted “gold standard” for the final diagnosis of disease: pathological diagnosis. The diagnosis of disease is made by observing the tissue structure and cellular lesion characteristics under a microscope. It is more objective and accurate than the clinical diagnosis based on history, symptoms and signs, as well as the diagnosis made by using various images, and is regarded as an authoritative diagnosis of a declarative nature. Therefore, pathologists are also called “doctor’s doctor”. All clinicians and imaging physicians uniquely recognize the pathologist’s results. Now, you understand. The only way to be 100% sure of a disease is to obtain pathology through surgical biopsy, but most diseases do not require surgery and can be diagnosed 9 times out of 10 from ancillary tests. For example, from a medical point of view, strictly speaking, the doctor should say “you are a possible cold”, even if you have a fever, runny, sneezing to not more like a cold, but there is no pathology to confirm the diagnosis. You don’t really have to cut a piece of tissue for pathology because of such a small disease. So don’t get hung up on the word “possible” for the unnecessary diagnosis. If you really need a clear diagnosis of the disease, I think your doctor will be very responsible to inform you.