what are the general stages of cancer?

Question

Where can I go to find the general stages of cancer. ACS tells me nothing.

Answer 1

In general, staging systems in the evaluation of cancer are designed to group patients into risk categories. For each different kind of cancer, researchers and care providers try to figure out what the best course of action is for patients, and one of the factors that goes into that thought process is what the stage of the cancer is at the time of diagnosis. The notion of "stage" is that cancer is a progressive process that gets worse as it goes along. There may be some errors in this model, but for the most part, the stage groupings as they are defined currently, are useful in predicting treatment outcomes and making treatment choices.

Different cancers have different specific criteria for defining stage. As the person above mentioned, the general components of evaluating stage involve examination of the primary tumor and designating a "T" value, then evaluating the regional lymph nodes for derriving the "N" value, and then finally looking to see if there is evidence of disease spread to other parts of the body, which is called metastasis, and thus deciding the "M" value.

The "TNM" system then leads to stage groupings. Each cancer is different. The American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) publishes a staging manual periodically, and updates stage groupings based on current clinical research and treatment options.

In general, there are 4 stages for each cancer, and the meanings of the stage numbers are usually about the same. Stage 1 disease is when a small tumor is discovered that has not spread. Stage 2 is a larger primary tumor, still, usually, with no evidence of spread to lymph nodes. Stage 3 involves the lymph nodes and stage 4 involves distant spread. There are exceptions to these, for example - in breast cancer, there can be some lymph node involvement and still a stage 2 categorization. The changes in staging reflect increased awareness of how well or poorly patients do.

Another piece of info that you'd be interested in, is the difference between clinical and pathologic staging. I can evaluate a tumor before and after I remove it. I may or may not come up with the same measurements or the same relationship between the tumor and its surrounding layers of normal tissue. A clinical staging is done by examining the patient. A pathologic staging is done by evaluating the tumor specimen after it has been removed. In some cases, a problem with cancer staging can be that the evidence for distant spread is actually quite subtle. If there are only tiny metastatic tumors in the liver, then these can be missed on conventional imaging studies. It is possible for someone who is stage 4 to be "understaged" and we need to be very careful about this prior to planning large heroic surgeries designed to eradicate cancer. If the cancer has already spread, then these major operations may be of little benefit and the primary mode of treatment should be medical and not surgical.

If you have specific questions about a type of cancer, and it's staging guidelines, please contact me and I'd be happy to help. The ACS website can be helpful if you know where to look. There are other resources as well, but they may or may not be designed for the layperson. The standard text for staging is the AJCC staging manual which can be purchased. There is no online version, but many websites directed at specific cancer types will reprint the relevant data. My copy is sitting on my shelf to the left, and I'd be happy to just tell you, if you have a specific cancer type in mind.

... Hope that helps!

Answer 2

We can only give a very general answer to this question. For a better answer to your question you should specify what type of cancer you are talking about. However, in general --

A cancer is staged according to an International model with the abbreviations "TNM" which stand for Tumor, Nodes, and Metastases. For example T2N2M0.

The higher the T value the more aggressive the cancer inherently is (although this value alone does not tell you how sick the person is since it doesn't tell you how much the cancer has spread).

A higher N value means that the tumor is spreading locally to more lymph nodes.

Any M value other than zero is a bad thing since that means that the cancer has metastasized, or spread to another part of the body.

Check out http://familydoctor.org/alpha_results.xml?letter=C for plenty of good and easy to read information on cancer.

Answer 3

I agree with bellydog. There are hundreds of types of cancer. Each type of cancer is differently stages. The staging is used to diagnose effectiveness of the prospective treatment and recovery chances. Try site listed below.

Answer 4

Here is a web site with a pretty good explination.

Answer 5

found five small spots on liver and lungs, they been there for yrs. and havent change size.