Doctors use cancer staging to help determine a patient’s prognosis and treatment options, but the process can be confusing for patients. Let’s explore what cancer staging really means for patients.
If you or a loved one has ever received a cancer diagnosis, you are likely familiar with the cancer staging process. After conducting an array of tests, doctors often assign cancer to one of five stages: Stage 0, Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, or Stage 4.
Sometimes, these stages can be further divided using letters, such as Stage 2A or Stage 3B. Without additional information or context, you might find yourself asking exactly what these numbers mean. Below, we take a more in-depth look at how cancers are staged, why staging is helpful for healthcare providers, and what it means for patients.
Why is Cancer Staging Needed?
According to the National Cancer Institute, staging is an important tool that provides doctors with information about where the cancer is located, how large the tumor is, and whether it has spread to other parts of the body. Once equipped with this information, doctors can better determine a patient’s prognosis (i.e., chance of survival), available treatment options, and potential for enrolment in clinical trials.
How is Cancer Staged?
Cancer staging can be clinical or pathological:
- Clinical Staging: Based on test results received before surgery, such as physical exams, lab tests, and imaging scans.
- Pathological Staging: Based on information obtained during surgery and examination of tissue removed during the procedure.
Staging is done as soon as a patient is diagnosed, before treatment begins. Once the stage of a cancer has been determined, it generally will not change over time, even if the disease grows, spreads, shrinks, or returns following treatment.
The TNM Staging System
Doctors often use the TNM staging system to determine a cancer’s stage. The National Cancer Institute explains how each letter of the system helps healthcare providers evaluate the extent of cancer in the body:
- T: Refers to the size and location of the primary tumor.
- N: Refers to the number of nearby lymph nodes that have cancer.
- M: Refers to whether the cancer has metastasized (i.e., spread to other parts of the body).
Each letter of the TNM staging system may also be assigned a number or letter that provides more detail about the cancer. Depending on the numeric value assigned to each letter of the TNM staging system, doctors can determine which one of the five stages noted above — Stage 0, Stage 1, Stage 2, Stage 3, or Stage 4 — best describes the cancer.
Not all cancers are staged using the TNM staging system. Brain tumors, spinal cord tumors, blood cancers, and certain other cancers use different classification systems.
What Does Cancer Staging Mean for Patients?
Because healthcare providers often use cancer staging to help determine a patient’s prognosis, patients might be tempted to research cancer survival rates after being informed of their cancer’s stage.
However, it is important to remember that these survival rates are based on information gathered from hundreds or thousands of patients — people of different ages, health conditions, cancer characteristics, and treatment experiences.
What does this mean? While these statistics can give you a broad idea about the outcomes of groups of patients diagnosed with your type and stage of cancer, they cannot predict your individual outcome. Everyone is different.
Questions to Ask Your Doctor about Cancer Staging
Understanding your cancer stage can help you have more informed conversations with your healthcare team. You may consider asking:
- What stage is my cancer, and what does that stage mean?
- Has the cancer spread to nearby lymph nodes or other parts of my body?
- What tests were used to determine my cancer stage?
- How does the stage affect my treatment options?
- Are there biomarkers or other characteristics of my cancer that may affect treatment?
Cancer staging provides doctors with important information, but a stage is only one part of an individual cancer diagnosis. Talk with your healthcare team about what your stage means specifically for you and how it may influence your treatment options.
Resource:
https://www.nfcr.org/blog/understanding-cancer-staging/
