Lung cancer staging
Lung cancer staging
If you are interested in your medical care, it is incredibly important to know about lung cancer staging - a classification of the distribution of your cancer. Lung cancer staging is used by doctors to direct your care as evidence to support the various treatment options are based studies within specific lung cancer stages.
TNM is currently the most universally used staging system where T category stands for tumor, N category for lymph nodes (small glands situated throughout your body) and M category for metastasis (or cancer deposits). The T category (usually) ranges from 1 to 4 for increasing size or distribution of the lung cancer, the N category ranges from 0 to 3 depending on the site of lymph node involvement and the M category ranges from 0 to 1 reflecting the number of sites of distant disease (cancer deposits). In addition, letters can be used at the end to denote subsets of disease, for example T1a, T1b, T1c indicating tumor size increasing by each centimeter.
Stage grouping is assigned as a roman numerals from I to IV once the T, N and M categories are determined. For example T1a N0 M0 would be assigned stage IA. The term localized (or early lung cancer) is given to the stages I and II, regional (or locally advanced) for stage III (A and B) and distant (or advanced) for stage IV.
Your cancer stage can be determined by your symptoms, what doctors find on examination or by investigations. Most commonly, cancer stage is assigned after a cancer diagnosis has been confirmed based on what can be seen on imaging (usually CT and/or PET/CT) scans of your body.
If you don’t know, or are not sure about your cancer stage, you should ask your healthcare professional your T, N and M categories and overall cancer stage group. Once you know, you will be able to read more about the treatment options that you may be able to receive.
The author Professor Eric Lim, is currently a member of the 9th international TNM committee for lung cancer staging.