Monday, August 31, 2015

An Overview Of Prostate Cancer Staging

By Nancy Gardner


Staging of cancer is meant to help the medical practitioner to tell how far it has spread. You will have to go through a series of scans and tests to determine the extent of the pathology. From the results, effective treatment plans can then be put into action. Prostate cancer staging is therefore very important.

The internationally accepted staging criteria takes into account the lymph node, metastasis and tumor factors . T1 stage tumors are very small such that they cannot be detected through scans or the techniques used in physical examination. You can only confirm the diagnosis by asking the patient to do a needle biopsy.

Tumors in stage T2 are classified into three categories. The first one is T2a which indicates that only one lobe of the prostate gland is affected. In T2b, more than half of gland is affected and in T2c stage the entire lobe is affected. On the other hand, if the tumor has left the prostate gland to affect the capsule but has not spread further is said to be in stage T3. This stage has two categories. T3a and T3b where the malignancy has reached the capsule and seminal vesicles respectively.

Stage T4 tumors usually have metastasized. The common areas affected include the pelvic cavity, bladder and rectum. The T4 and T3 tumor stages are said to be locally advanced stages. These are the most difficult stages to treat.

The lymph nodes will be described to be positive if they have cancerous cells. This makes them enlarge. The degree of enlargement is directly proportional to the number of cancer cells in the lymph node. In NX stage, the nodes can not be checked while in N0 stage, the nodes close to the gland have not been affected. In N1 stage, the lymph nodes have cancerous cells.

If the tumor has metastasized, the level of metastasis has to be communicated. M0 stage means that the tumor is just within the pelvis while M1 stage means that the malignancy has spread out of pelvis. This stage has two sub stages. M1a stage means that the lymph nodes not in the pelvis have cancer cells while in M1b the malignancy has affected the skeletal system. M1c is diagnosed when the malignancy has invaded the rest of body organs. You need to consider a number of aspects if you are to make an accurate diagnosis.

The cancer is said to be locally advanced if it has proceeded beyond the capsule. If it said to have metastasized, it means that it has reached the rest of body organs. The areas which are affected the most by cancer proceeding from the prostate gland are the bones and the lymphatic organs.

To note is that it is possible for the malignancy to spread even when it not advanced. This is why serious actions should be taken to manage the disease in case scans show that there is some degree of metastasis. The cure rates are high if the treatment is started early.




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