Thursday, July 16, 2009

Cancer Stages Reviews & Guide

By Anne Durrell

A doctor will go through steps to figure out the stage of cancer when it is diagnosed.

Cancer stages are often used to help doctors form a treatment plan and to help patients understand the extent of the cancer as well as the prognosis.

Staging cancer may seem confusing, but it is actually not that difficult to understand.

Essential Staging

A process called staging will determine cancer stages. It determines the severity of the cancer.

It is based on the extent of how much the cancer has spread in the body.

Doctors will usually perform another tests to check the body for cancer as well as to get an idea where the cancer is, where the cancer began and if the cancer spreading.

Staging Importance

It is an important part of the process in determining how to treat the cancer.

Staging process is also useful for future research and understanding how the cancer reacts in the body.

Here are the main reasons why staging is important:

* Staging helps form a treatment plan

* Helps in forming a prognosis

* Helpful in research studies

Staging Elements

Staging is done by looking at different factors.

There are certain elements that are included when determining cancer stages in order to help maintain a level of consistency for staging. These staging elements include:

* Location of the beginning of the cancer

* Size and number of tumors

* Location of cancer in the lymph nodes

* Cell type and grade of tumor

* Amount of metastasis

Generally, cancer stages are based upon 5 stages chart, and here is how it looks:

Stage 0: Only early or pre-cancerous cells are present

Stage One, Two, and Three: Cancer may have spread in the localized area.

Stage 4: Cancer has spread everywhere in the body

It is not easy to understand cancer stages, but is actually very important. A person receiving a diagnosis of stage one cancer will know that the cancer is a lot easier to treat, and so their prognosis will be good.

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