Benign

The term benign may be used to describe tumours that lack all the qualities that would otherwise result in the tumour being classified as malignant (cancerous).

This may be summarised in table form:

Property of Tumour:	Malignant ?	Benign ?
Not "self-limited" in its growth, i.e. it may just keep on getting bigger ...	YES	NO
Capable of invading into adjacent tissues (not necessarily of the sme type).	YES	NO
May be capable of spreading to distant tissues (which is called "metastasizing"),	YES	NO
NONE of the above	NO	YES

Compare and Contrast: The opposite of benign is malignant.
That is: A tumour that is not cancerous is benign; a tumour that is cancerous is malignant..



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