I'm not sure there is a single word that corresponds to the benign/malignant status of a tumour (certainly not dignity!!!)
could you say "the differentiation of the tumour/tissue specimen"
or just "...whether the tumour/tissue specimen is benign or malignant"
e.g. A pathologist determines whether the tumour/tissue is benign or malignant.
Is there an oncologist out there?

This bilingual site just translates it with 'type'. Not very dignified.

Thanks!
Differentiation is rather referring to the similarity with the original tissue, once the cells start degenerate - it's more the degree of being malign, not so much the difference between benign and malign, I guess.
Any oncologist???

Di|gnität

Wert, Bedeutung; insbes. – bei Tumoren – die Bedeutung i.S. „Gut-“ oder „Bösartigkeit“ (= Benignität bzw. Malignität).

IANAO, but that's what I've found. According to the reportedly accurate Roche dictionary, 'Dignität' denotes neoplasm as being of either benign or malign character.
Unfortunately, Roche doesn't give a translation. Google hits specifying "dignity" seem to stem predominantly from German speaking sites, so Marianne apparently is right in disadvising its use.

This is something off topic, but I wonder whether the word "malign" is correct. I don't work at all in anything medical, so my knowledge is purely that of a layman, but in lay English, the contrast to "benign" is "malignant", not "malign."

I did scan the web, and there are indeed many thousands of hits for "malign tissue", but scanning the first few of them, they are not sites from English speaking countries. (One German, one Roumanian, one Norwegian.) (There are many more hits for "malignant tissue" than "malign tissue.")

Could it be that "malign tissue" or "malign tumor" is just translator English, where the native speaker would only say "malignant"?

Or is "malign" actually used by native English speaking medical practitioners?

Martin; I agree. I would use malignant and not malign in a medical context (see my comment above) e.g. malignant tumour, malignant hypertension, malignant tertian malaria etc.
Dorland's and Stedman's medical dictionaries both have an entry for malignant but none for malign.
http://www.mercksource.com/pp/us/cns/cns_hl_d...
malignant (ma·lig·nant) (m[schwa]-lig¢n[schwa]nt) [L. malignans acting maliciously] 1. tending to become progressively worse and to result in death. 2. having the properties of anaplasia, invasion, and metastasis; said of tumors.

just talked to my native english friend and it is definitely MALIGNANT and not malign!

bye bye

re malignant: Oops, so sorry, folks, to have caused such an upheaval by my slip-up! Of course, it is malignant, not malign - must have been caused by some neurones of my Latin subnucleus firing too strong ;-)
Can you forgive me?

Peter: no problem :-)
A further suggestion for Lynn:
"the benign or malignant nature of the tumour"

I saw numbers of oncological papers and never found a term like the German "Dignität". So I think, Marianne is right, and maybe "nature of the tumour" will be sufficient.

malignancy [med.] = bösartiger Tumor
malignancy = die Böswilligkeit

"Dignitätseinschätzung" = "assessment of malignancy"

It appears to me that translating "Dignität" with "malignancy" might be a viable way out. If one assesses how malignant a suspect lesion or a tumor is that would indicate its "dignity".

in order to make it easier, could the term "character" be used to describe "dignität" ?

Ascertain the dignity of a tumour.

@Gulliva: Ich bitte Dich, die Behauptung, dass dignity englischsprachig in diesem Sinn (Gutartigkeit vs. Bösartigkeit eines Tumors und nicht z.B. human dignity) verwendet wird, mit seriösen englischsprachigen medizinschen Literaturstellen zu belegen, die von Autoren mit Englisch als Muttersprache (und nicht von Deutschen, Koreanern, Italienern usw.) geschrieben wurden. Ich kenne keine einzige, auch nicht z.B. nach einer Volltextsuche im New England Journal of Medicine von Januar 1993 bis heute sowie einer PubMed-Suche in den Abstracts der letzten Jahre.
Siehe auch die obigen Kommentare von Marianne und anderen!

@ gygis. Admittedly, most of the (numerous)references are in English texts written by German authors. But what makes me pause for thought is that I know from experience that German academics are usually very careful about the expressions they use and don't just make a random translation of a German expression when writing for scientific journals. I haven't searched original English sources, so maybe you're right....

I agree with #9,#10,#11

Just to come back again and repeat what I said in #1 - certainly NOT "dignity" in this context in English.

"(benign or malignant) nature of the tumour" or possibly assessment of "(the degree of) malignancy" still seem to be the best options to me.