CANCER STAGING AND TUMOR TYPES Flashcards
What is staging?
Process of finding out how much cancer is in a person’s body and where it is located
Staging helps with treatment plans and predict a person’s prognosis
CANCER STAGING
The stage is based on four main factors?
- Location of the primary tumor
- Tumor size and extent of tumors
- Lymph node involvement
- Presence or absence of distant metastasis
CANCER STAGING
1. Why is staging needed? 3
- What is looked at when staging cancer? 5
- How are cancers staged? 5
- Amount of cancer
- Where in the body
- Best treatment
For example, the treatment for an early-stage cancer may be surgery or radiation, while a more advanced-stage cancer may need to be treated with chemotherapy.
- Tumor size
- Location
- Extent of growth
- Lymph nodes
- Spread to distant areas
- Physical exam
- Imaging studies
- Laboratory test
- Pathology reports
- Surgical reports
What are the types of staging?
4
- Clinical staging
- Estimate of the extent of cancer based on results - Pathologic staging
- Surgical stage - Post-Therapy/Post-Neoadjuvant -Therapy Staging
- Restaging
Cancer staging: The TNM system?
T stands for the primary tumor
N stands for nodes
M stands for metastasis
T category gives info about primary tumor: Such as?
- Size
- How deep it has grown into the organ it started
- If it has grown into nearby tissues
CANCER STAGING: Describe what the followng mean:
TX?
T0?
Tis?
Numbers after the T (T1-T4)?
3
TX: Means tumor can’t be measured
T0: Means there is no evidence of a primary tumor
Tis: Means that cancer cells are only growing into most superficial layers, without growing into deeper tissues
T (T1-T4):
- Describe the tumor size
- Amount of spread into nearby tissues
- Higher the T number, the larger the tumor and spread to nearby tissue
- N category describes what?
- NX?
- N0?
- Numbers after the N? (1-3)
- N category describes whether the cancer has spread into the lymph nodes
- NX: Means the nearby lymph nodes can’t be evaluated
- N0: Means nearby lymph nodes do not contain cancer
- Numbers after the N (N1-N3)
- M category describes what?
- M0?
- M1?
- M category tell whether cancer has spread (metastasized) to distant body parts
- M0: Means that no cancer spread was found
- M1: Means cancer has spread to distant organs or tissues
Stage grouping
Once TNM has been determined, cancer is staged in what?
Describe each stage:
- I?
- IV?
- Stage 0?
Roman numerals I-IV
- I is least advanced
- IV is most advanced
- Some will be subdivided with A & B (IIA, IIIB) - Stage 0 is carcinoma in situ for most cancers
Describe severity of Stage I, Stage II, and Stage III?
Higher numbers indicate more extensive disease: Larger tumor size and/or spread of the cancer beyond the organ in which it first developed to nearby lymph nodes and/or tissues or organs adjacent to the location of the primary tumor
Describe severity of stage IV?
Other staging terms? 5
The cancer has spread to distant tissues or organs
Other staging terms:
- In situ
- Localized
- Regional
- Distant
- Unknown
- The stage of the cancer is determined only when what?
- How does the stage change over time?
- Survival statistics and info on treatment by stage refers to the stage when the cancer was what?
- “Restaging” is what?
- A ____ is written before the new stage
- the cancer is first diagnosed
- The stage does not change over time
- first diagnosed
- Term used to describe doing test to find the extent of the cancer after treatment
- “r”
TUMOR TYPES
8
- Carcinoma
- Sarcoma
- Leukemia
- Lymphoma
- Multiple Myeloma
- Melanoma
- Brain and Spinal Cord Tumors
- Other Types
What is the most common type of cancer?
Carcinoma