Why is the primary hidden?
'What, Why and How' are fairly typical reactions to CUP diagnosis. It seems incomprehensible in our scientific age that a Primary is invisible. There are 4 main possibilities for the invisibility:
- Size of a grain of rice or smaller. The primary may be very small – too small to be picked-up by present day tests including ultrasound, CT scans, MRI and PET.
- Fallen on stony ground. The primary may have been successfully attacked by the body’s immune system as it tries to get a toehold and has migrated through the body to find sanctuary in a place where it can thrive and confuse the immune system.
- Self healing. The primary might have “self healed” or been be pushed out of the body if, for example, it was hanging perilously to part of the digestive system. This does not necessarily stop it from manifesting itself as a secondary.
- Hidden. The secondaries, if growing close to the primary, may make it difficult to distinguish from a larger cancer mass.
Whether it can be found or not, every unknown secondary has a primary
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