Читать книгу Overcome the Challenges of Cancer Care - M. D. Rosenberg - Страница 24

The final steps in staging a cancer use the TNM language to place a patient into a group—also known as the final stage. The woman in our scenario with a T2N1M0 breast cancer would be given a Stage II classification. Stages help us predict how the cancer will behave and what the potential outcome for the patient may be.

Just like TNM varies across different cancers, so do staging groups. Staging often goes from I to IV (or 1 to 4, using Roman numerals). Stage I means the cancer is local (it’s a small cancer with no signs of spread to other parts of the body). On the other hand, Stage IV often implies the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.

This does not mean that Stage IV is always bad or incurable. There are some patients with Stage IV cancers that still may be cured of their cancer (see chapter 9 on the gray zone). Patients need to talk to their doctors to understand what a stage means in the context of a specific cancer.