How is prostate cancer staged?
If cancer is found in the prostate, your physicians need to know the stage, or
extent, of the disease. Staging is a careful attempt to find out whether the
cancer has spread and, if so, what parts of the body are affected. The doctor
may use various blood and imaging tests to learn the stage of the disease.
Treatment decisions depend on these findings. The results of staging tests help
the doctor decide which stage best describes a patient's disease. Clinical and
pathological stage of the disease is one of the most important prognostic
factors for patient's survival.
Two systems are in common use for the staging of prostate cancer. The
"Jewett system" (stages A through D) was described in 1975 and has
since been modified. In 1997, the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) and
the International Union Against Cancer adopted a revised TNM system which
employs the same broad T stage categories as the Jewett system but includes
subcategories of T stage, including a stage to describe patients diagnosed
through PSA screening. This revised TNM system is clinically useful and more
precisely stratifies newly diagnosed patients. A simplified summary of both
staging systems is shown below and both are used in the text of this summary
discussing treatment options.
· Stage I (A) --The cancer cannot be detected by rectal exam and causes no
symptoms. The cancer is usually found during surgery to relieve problems with
urination or during a screening PSA blood test. State I tumors may be in more
than one area of the prostate, but there is no evidence of spread outside the
prostate.
· Stage II (B) --The tumor is felt in a rectal exam or detected by a blood
test, but there is no evidence that the cancer has spread outside the prostate.
· Stage III (C) --The cancer has spread outside the prostate to nearby tissues.
· Stage IV (D) --Cancer cells have spread to lymph nodes or to other parts of
the body.
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