unknown primary workup

unknown primary workup

A generic term for the exercise by a histopathologist in which possible primary cancer diagnoses are weighed, tested for and excluded or included, winnowing the possible diagnoses to one cancer that best fits the clinical picture. In any site in the body, the pathologist may be presented with undifferentiated cells and an inflammatory background and must therefore exclude the usual diagnostic suspects, including poorly differentiated carcinomas and sarcomas that are native to the site, as well as metastatic tumours (carcinoma, melanoma and lymphoma).