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Staging and Grading
Once the diagnosis of prostate cancer has been made the disease
has to be staged and graded. The stage refers to the extent and
spread of the disease while the grade refers to the nature
(aggressiveness) of the particular tumor. Staging will determine
the extent of disease and provide important prognostic
information that will influence the management decisions.
Staging investigations - PSA - X-rays of lumbar spine and pelvis
- Chest X-ray - Radionuclitide bone scan - MTI scan of pelvis
TNM Staging system
T stage (extent of primary lesion)
- T1 - tumor confined to prostate, not palpable or
visible on
TRUS - T2 - tumor palpable or visible on TRUS but confined to
prostate - T3 - spread beyond the prostatic capsule - T3a -
extracapsular spread only - T3b - involvement of the seminal
vesicles - T4 - invasion into rectal wall, bladder neck or
pelvic wall N (Nodal) status - N0 - regional nodes not involved
- N1 - regional nodes involved by tumor M (Distant Metastases) -
M0 - no distant metastases - M1 - distant metastases present
Grading
Grading refers to what the cancer looks like under a microscope.
The most commonly used system is the Gleason grade and score.
The glandular pattern is compared to that of a normal prostate
and
scored out of 5, where 1 resembles a pattern very close to
normal and 5 resembles severely distorted glandular
architecture. The two predominant glandular patterns within the
cancer are graded out of 5 and the combined score calculated out
of 10. The higher the Gleason score, the more aggressive is the
tumor and the worse is the prognosis. Patients with cancers
confined to the prostate (T1 and T2) and no involvement of the
lymph nodes or other organs (N0 and M0) are potentially curable
by surgery or radiotherapy. Patients with disease beyond the
prostate are not curable.
With our next information - we will inform you about the "Risk
factors for enlarged
prostate" - so you should have a look on
this site in the next 2 weeks! If you have any question sends us
your e-mail.
Health-Service-Online Fritz Frei Admin
http://www.cancer-info.info
About the author:
Fritz Frei works since more than 25 years in the health-and
hosptital business as a consultant and he make it easy to check
out the important details about the diagnoses, test's and
treatments of the Prostate Cancer. To receive more information's
about all prostate cancer -questions - Links and last research
NEW's - visit the http://www.cancer-info.info