These consist of sacs, or bags, filled with certain contents, produced by secretion or growth from the lining membrane. The dilatation of a lacteal duct from accumulation of milk, as described under Lacteal Tumour, may give rise to a cystic tumour.

Symptoms

The contents of the sac are variable; generally transparent, thick, and glairy. There may be only one sac, or several; in the latter case, one or more secondary sacs grow out of, or upon the parent sac, until the whole tumour becomes enormously large. The walls of the sac are sometimes of cartilaginous density. Osseous deposits have been met with in such growths. They are painless, smooth, soft, well-defined swellings; lobulated when multiple; tensely filled with fluid; yielding to the touch, and covered with healthy skin. When the walls of the sac are dense, the softness of the tumour is, of course, less distinctly marked than usual. When the sac is injured by being dragged along the ground, etc., it ulcerates, and the ulceration may degenerate into a cancerous state.

* For the doses, etc., of these medicines, consult the " Introductory Remarks."

Treatment

Tapping and injecting iodine may cure a single cystic tumour; but a multiple tumour, the cysts of which do not communicate, cannot be successfully cured in this way, and the only alternative is a surgical operation.