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[cow chaser]

What is   Staging breast cancer mean???

[CCF-RN,MSN-JS]

Dear cow chaser, The staging process is done when breast cancer is diagnosed in order to help to decide appropriate treatment.  A staging system is a standardized way in which the cancer care team describes the extent to which a cancer has spread.  The most commonly used system in the United States is called the TNM System.  The TNM System describes the extent of the primary tumor (T), the absence or presence of disease in the nearby lymph nodes (N), and the absence or presence of distant metastasis (M).  "Staging" then is doing the testing needed to obtain information to determine the extent of the disease.

[surgeon]

it means testing to determine how extensive the cancer is; it puts cancer in one of various categories, which correlate with prognosis, and which determine what treatments are indicated. For breast cancer, basicallly, stage I means it's confined to the breast and is a small tumor, and is highly curable (there's a stage 0, for the earliest form, noninvasive cancer, which is nearly 100% curable); stage 2 means it's a bigger tumor or has spread to a very few adjacent lymph nodes and still has a very hight chance of cure; stage 3 means a large tumor with lots of growth within the breast, and/or spread to lots of nodes -- still curable, but the odds are less; stage 4 means spread to places outside the breast and adjacent nodes, and means it's not curable but may be controllable for long periods of time -- many years in many cases. Staging is done by measuring the tumor, looking at various features under the microscope, checking lymph nodes under the arm, and if indicated doing xrays or other imaging studies of other organs -- CAT scan, bone scan, etc.

[cow chaser]

thank you so much...