How Many Total Stages of Cancer Exist?

Total Number of Stages of Cancer Based on the Number Staging System

Cancer is a disease that occurs from uncontrollable cell growth and abnormal division, forming tumours. If cancer spreads into several body parts, understanding the cancer stage can be beneficial in planning treatment regimens. Healthcare professionals perform several tests to identify cancer stages, make treatment plans, and diagnose the disease. Cancer staging measures the growth, size and location of tumour cells in the body.

Existing Cancer Stages Based on the Number Staging System

Generally, doctors prefer a number staging system to stage this disease for medical purposes. Doctors consider four stages, numbered 1 to 4 in Roman numerals, for each cancer stage.

Stage 0 Cancer:This stage indicates a curable condition with pre-cancerous cells. In this stage, abnormal cells do not spread to other body parts from where the tumour cells are initiated.
Stage 1 (I): In this stage, cancer is referred to as benign. It develops as a small lump or tumour in a region of the body.
Stage 2 (II): Tumour cells grow in size and change shape in stage 2. During this stage, cancerous cells can be located in a particular region but initiate abnormal growth and rapid division. For some particular cancer types, the tumour cells start spreading into the lymph nodes.
Stage 3 (III):It refers to a larger cancer that spreads into the lymph nodes and surrounding tissues. After stage 4, the cell mass starts growing significantly and affects the nearby areas or lymph nodes of the initial location.
Stage 4 (IV): Usually preferred as the last stage of this disease, where cells divide and rapidly extend to different body parts. For example, in stage 4, breast cancer may spread from the breast to the liver, bones, lungs and brain. Stage 4 is an alarming stage where the body can stop responding to therapies and other treatments. During this stage, recovery chances are low, and the prognosis is poor.

Reasons for Staging Cancer

It is important to know the reason for segregating this disease into stages to seek the answer to how many stages of cancer exist:

Since it is a complicated disease, the staging process guides on site, location, and size. It helps to track the body condition and growth of cancerous cells and predict disease outcomes and patients' future health.
Determining the stages of this disease helps doctors understand treatment requirements, such as surgery, therapies, or medications.
Sometimes, patients and their family members need assurance regarding treatable rates, risk of cancer in the particular scenario, mortality rate and lifestyle expectancy. Detecting the cancer stage in early diagnosis can help doctors manage the issues and maintain quality treatment for a longer lifespan of patients.
Knowing a certain stage and type of cancer helps healthcare providers determine particular drug or device responses against the disease for individual patients.

TNM Staging System to Determine the Extent of Cancer

Doctors use the TNM (Tumour, Nodes and Metastasis) system to measure the extent of cancer. The criteria used in this system for cancer classification are:

T (Tumour): It refers to the mobility and size of cancerous cells that are measured by obtaining the tumour cells' growth or diameter. It denotes numerals from 0 to 4 for describing tumour size. Higher numbers like T4 refer to bigger tumours, whereas T0 means no measurable tumour is present in the body.
N (Node): Indicates changes in small pea-sized lymph nodes that contain body immune cells to fight against disease and infection. "N" examines if lymph nodes are getting swollen, enlarged or clustered with a referral numeral of 0 to 3.
M (Metastasis): It signifies the particular stage where tumour or cancer cells invade several body organs and extend to different parts. This system follows numerals 0 and 1, where 1 means cancer spread and 0 means not spread.

4 different stages of cancer have been determined to understand the progression of tumour cells and formulate proper treatment plans for the cure and betterment of patients. During stage 2, cancer cells start to divide abnormally and rapidly divide and spread to other body parts. Stage 4 cancer is the last stage with poor prognosis and survival chances, where the body stops responding to treatments.

How Many Total Stages of Cancer Exist?

Total Number of Stages of Cancer Based on the Number Staging System

Existing Cancer Stages Based on the Number Staging System

Reasons for Staging Cancer

TNM Staging System to Determine the Extent of Cancer

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