Standard Nomenclature for Primary Hepatic Tumors

Abstract

THE TERMINOLOGY for tumors composed of hepatocytes is superfluous. It is permeated with synonyms. Archaic nomenclature mattered little in the past. Benign primary tumors of the liver were rare. Etiology was unknown. They usually occurred in the extremes of life; in the very young, they were considered congenital, and they corresponded to known potentials for tumorigenesis in the elderly. Malignant primary tumors were also rare in the United States and usually occurred in the chemically or alcoholically damaged liver. Little did it matter if these growths were called hepatoma, hamartoma, liver-cell adenoma, benign hepatoma, solitary adenoma, or hepatic adenoma. Nor did it matter if vague histologic criteria separated these growths from a group of tumor-like lesions again described by various synonyms, including focal nodular hyperplasia, focal cirrhosis, hamartomatous cholangiohepatoma, isolated nodules of regenerative hyperplasia, mixed adenoma, adenoma, and solitary hyperplastic nodule. But now nomenclature does matter. A medley of jolting