Introducing Cancer Stages
Diagnosing cancer will take some steps to find out the cancer stage. Stages of cancer are used to help out doctors find a treatment plan and to help patients recognize the level of their cancer and the prognosis. Staging cancer seems bewildering, but truly, it is easy to understand.
Defining Staging
Cancer stages are found out by a procedure called staging. Staging decides the harshness of cancer. It is experimented by the size of cancer and how it has spread throughout the body. The doctors perform further tests to examine the body for cancer and to find of where the cancer is, where it started and whether it’s spreading.
The Importance of Staging
Staging can help in lots of methods. It’s the essential part of the process to determine how to cure cancer. Also, it’s useful for future in researching and understanding of how the cancer in the body reacts. Following are the major reasons why staging is essential:
• Helps find out the treatment plan
• Helps in finding out a lung cancer prognosis
• Useful in research studies
Elements of Staging
Staging is done by looking at different factors. In order to help maintain a level of consistency for staging there are certain elements that are included when determining cancer stages. These elements include:
• Location of early cancer
• Size and number of tumors
• Cell type and grade of tumor
• Metastasis extent
The Systems of Staging
Lung cancer stages are referred to based upon a staging system. The most commonly used staging system is the TNM system. TNM stands for:
T stands for Tumor
N stands for Lymph Nodes
M – Metastasis
Each letter gets a number added to it to indicate the extent of the cancer in relation to the tumor, lymph nodes and metastasis. Numbers range from 0 to 4, with 0 being representative of none and 4 being the highest cancer stage.
In general, cancer stages are based upon a simple five stage chart. Here is how that looks:
Stage 0: Only early or pre-cancerous cells are present
Stage 1, 2 and 3: Cancer is present and maybe has spread in the specified area
Step 4: The cancer has spread somewhere else in the body
Understanding cancer stages is not always easy, but it is important. A person receiving a diagnosis of cancer in stage 1 will know that their cancer is easier to treat and therefore their prognosis will likely be good.
Tags: cancer overview, cancer prognosis, lung cancer, survival rates, symptoms
