Detection, Diagnosis, Staging

Question 1

What are some of the blood tests that doctors commonly use? What kind of information do these blood tests relay?

Answer 1

Complete blood test (CBC): measures composition of blood including #/type of blood cells, size, average weight, % of blood in cell

Chemistry panel: series of testing measuring levels of various chemicals in blood (salt, glucose, cholestral, etc)

Question 2

Are they definitive tests for cancer?

Answer 2

No but it does give an idea of general health

Question 3

What are some of the imaging techniques that doctors use? Explain how each of these techniques work and some of the differences are between them

Answer 3

1. X-Ray Imaging: electromagnetic radiation creating 2D image
2. CT Scan: x-ray test rotating around part of body with a narrow beam - more detailed 3D image
3. Ultrasound: high frequency sound waves bounce against body part creating 2D image
4. MRI: Magnetic field causing water molecules to reorient creating an image - good for soft body tissue
5. PET Scan: small amount of radioactive glucose injected into bloodstream and scanned in donut hole machine

Question 4

Why are PET scans particularly good at identifying cancer?

Answer 4

PETs scans tracks glucose levels and can see where it’s more concentrated in the body. Cancer tends to use up a lot glucose

Question 5

What are some of the limitations of imaging techniques?

Answer 5

Can’t tell difference between cancerous and benign tumors

Question 6

What is a biopsy? What are some of the things that pathologists look for in biopsies?

Answer 6

Procedure where small amount of tissue is removed to look at under a microscope - differentiates benign and cancerous tumors

Looks for…
1. Cell size and shape
2. Nucleus size and shape
3. Cell arrangement

Question 7

In what ways do cancer cells look different than normal cells?

Answer 7

1. Cancer cells abnormally small or large with weird shapes
2. Large irregularly shaped nucleus
3. Abnormal/clustered arrangements (darker?)

Question 8

What does a cancer stage tell you?

Answer 8

Stage: degree to which cancer has progressed

Question 9

What does TNM stand for? What do the numbers for TNM mean?

Answer 9

T - Tumor Size (1 - smallest, 4 - biggest)
N - Cancer in lymph nodes (0 - none, 3 - a lot
M - Metastasized? (0 - no, 1 - yes)

Question 10

What is a cancer grade? How is this different from the stage? - esp higher

Answer 10

How differentiated cancer cells are
Scale of 1 (well differentiated) to 4 (undifferentiated)