Characteristics Of Cancer Stages
When cancer is diagnosed the doctor will go through steps to figure out the stage of the cancer. Cancer stages are used to help doctors form a treatment plan and to help patients understand the extent of their cancer and the prognosis. Staging cancer may seem confusing, but it is actually not that difficult to understand.
Identifying 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 helps in many ways. It is an important part of the process in determining how to treat the cancer. It is also useful for future research and understanding how that particular cancer reacts in the body. Here are the main reasons why staging is important:
• Helps form a treatment plan
• Helps in forming a lung cancer prognosis
• Useful in research studies
The Factors 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
• Number and size of tumors
• Cell type and grade of tumor
• Extent of metastasis
Staging Systems
Lung cancer stages are identified on the basis of a system of staging. The most frequently used system is the TNM system. TNM stands for:
T – Tumor
N – Lymph Nodes
M stands for 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.
Cancer stages are generally based on the five stages of a simple chart. Here’s how it looks:
Step 0: Only at the beginning or pre-cancerous cells are present
Stage 1, 2 and 3: Cancer is present and may have spread in the localized area
Stage 4: Cancer has spread elsewhere 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.
