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Monday, June 16, 2014

Decode TCGA Cancer Abbreviations

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) uses abbreviations in a lot of filenames and directories for the cancer subtypes they study.  Most of these sample abbreviations are pretty self-explanatory, but there are a few hard to guess cancer abbreviations.  To decipher these TCGA sample types, I reference the below table:


Abbreviation  Cancer Type
ACC Adrenocortical carcinoma
BLCA Bladder Urothelial Carcinoma
BRCA Breast invasive carcinoma
CESC Cervical squamous cell carcinoma and endocervical adenocarcinoma
CHOL Cholangiocarcinoma
CNTL Controls
COAD Colon adenocarcinoma
DLBC Lymphoid Neoplasm Diffuse Large B-cell Lymphoma
ESCA Esophageal carcinoma
GBM Glioblastoma multiforme
HNSC Head and Neck squamous cell carcinoma
KICH Kidney Chromophobe
KIRC Kidney renal clear cell carcinoma
KIRP Kidney renal papillary cell carcinoma
LAML Acute Myeloid Leukemia
LCML Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia
LGG Brain Lower Grade Glioma
LIHC Liver hepatocellular carcinoma
LUAD Lung adenocarcinoma
LUSC Lung squamous cell carcinoma
MESO Mesothelioma
MISC Miscellaneous
OV Ovarian serous cystadenocarcinoma
PAAD Pancreatic adenocarcinoma
PCPG Pheochromocytoma and Paraganglioma
PRAD Prostate adenocarcinoma
READ Rectum adenocarcinoma
SARC Sarcoma
SKCM Skin Cutaneous Melanoma
STAD Stomach adenocarcinoma
TGCT Testicular Germ Cell Tumors
THCA Thyroid carcinoma
THYM Thymoma
UCEC Uterine Corpus Endometrial Carcinoma
UCS Uterine Carcinosarcoma
UVM Uveal Melanoma
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2 comments:

  1. Atlantic EndocrinologyMarch 3, 2026 at 11:23 AM

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  2. Atlantic EndocrinologyMarch 3, 2026 at 11:24 AM

    I really appreciate having all these TCGA abbreviations in one place—THCA and some of the less obvious ones can definitely trip people up. It also makes me think about the real-world side of things, like understanding the thyroid cancer treatment cost once a diagnosis is clear. Do you plan to expand this with clinical context too?

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