What is small cell carcinoma and why does it matter if it is small, medium, or large?

It does matter: It is part of pathologic observation under microscopes. Decades ago, when we dont have more advanced technology such as fish, pcr, etc- morphologic description is very crucial-and it still is even now-at some degree. It is still a useful information in a process to find out the type of cancer. The biology, prognosis, treatment etc will be different in small cell carcinoma vs large cell ca.

Usually this: Term refers to a smoking induced lung cancer, and teh cellular architecture is "lymphocyte like" small, filled with 'salt and pepper' nuclei, lacking nucleoli. The chromatin is fragile, crushes and streaks, but moulds like a knuckle into a ping pong ball. Other organs have generally unusual and bad cell types called small cell; the medium and large do not work here.