lesson 3 Flashcards
The process of determine details about the cancer, such as how large the tumor is and if it has spread
STAGING
A cancer staging notation system that describes the stage of a cancer which originates from solid
tumor with alphanumeric codes
TNM Staging System
refers to the size and extent of the main tumor. The main tumor is usually called the primary
tumor
T
refers to the number of nearby lymph nodes that have cancer.
N
refers to whether the cancer has metastasized
M
It is categorized by the apparent anatomic extent of the disease
PRIMARY TUMOR (T)
The main criterion and primarily consists of the degree of extension into adjacent structures, such as into the
muscle of hollow organs, bone, cartilage, and other viscera
Depth of invasion
Consists of determination of the degree of circumferential involvement by disease for hollow organs, or of
regional sub-site involvement by disease for hollow cavities like the nasopharynx
Surface spread
Tumor size can be related to cell number, tumor age, and anatomic extent
Size
- refers to whether the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes. It can be between 0 and 3.
- 0 means that there are no lymph nodes containing cancer cells and 3 means that there are lots of lymph nodes containing cancer cells)
N CLASSIFICATION
refers to whether the cancer has spread to another part of the body. It can either be 0 or 1. M0 means that cancer hasn’t spread and M1 that cancer has spread
M CLASSIFICATION
the 5 year survival for stage 1 CANCER is over 90% and for stage 4 is below
10%
systems use the TNM system to divide cancers into stages. Most types of cancer have 4 stages, numbered from 1 to 4 and the stage is written down in Roman numerals. So they may write stage 4 as stage IV
Number staging
means that a cancer is small and contained within the organ it started in
Stage 1
usually means that the tumor is larger than in stage 1 but the cancer hasn’t started to spread into the surrounding
tissues. Sometimes BLANK means that cancer cells have spread into lymph nodes close to the tumor. This depends on the particular type of cancer
Stage 2
usually means the cancer is larger. It may have started to spread into surrounding tissues and there are cancer cells in the lymph nodes nearby
Stage 3
means the cancer has spread from where it started to another body organ. For example to the liver or lung.
This is also called secondary or metastatic cancer
Stage 4
is typically used to describe a cancer that’s less aggressive
Stage A
is used to classify a more advanced
cancer within a certain category
Stage B
an identification of a disease via examination
diagnosis
a prediction of the course of the disease as well as the treatment and results
prognosis
There is a probability of long term survival after adequate therapy, some side effects of therapy although undesirable, may be acceptable
CURATIVE
are delivered before the main treatment, to help reduce the size of a tumor or kill cancer cells that have spread
Neoadjuvant therapies
are delivered after the primary treatment, to destroy remaining cancer cells
Adjuvant therapies
