Cancer Staging

Cancer staging is the process of determining the extent to which a cancer has developed by spreading. Contemporary practice is to assign a number from I-IV to a cancer, with I being an isolated cancer and IV being a cancer which as spread to the limit of what the assessment measures. The stage generally takes into account the size of a tumor, how deeply it has penetrated within the wall of a hollow organ (intestine, urinary bladder), whether it has invaded adjacent organs, how many regional lymph nodes it has metastasized to (if any), and whether it has spread to distant organs.

A low cancer stage is the most important predictor of survival, and physicians recommend cancer treatment is primarily by staging. Thus, staging does not change with progression of the disease as it is used to assess prognosis. Patients' cancer, however, may be restaged after treatment but the staging established at diagnosis is rarely changed.

Famous quotes containing the words cancer and/or staging:

“I wish more and more that health were studied half as much as disease is. Why, with all the endowment of research against cancer is no study made of those who are free from cancer? Why not inquire what foods they eat, what habits of body and mind they cultivate? And why never study animals in health and natural surroundings? why always sickened and in an environment of strangeness and artificiality?”
—Sarah N. Cleghorn (1976–1959)

“Such were the first rude beginnings of a town. They spoke of the practicability of a winter road to the Moosehead Carry, which would not cost much, and would connect them with steam and staging and all the busy world. I almost doubted if the lake would be there,—the self-same lake,—preserve its form and identity, when the shores should be cleared and settled; as if these lakes and streams which explorers report never awaited the advent of the citizen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)