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subject: Staging and Grading of Prostate Cancer by:Fritz Frei [print this page]

Staging and Grading
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

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prostate" - so you should have a look on

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About the author

Fritz Frei make it easy to check out the important details about the diagnoses and test's of the prostate cancer. To receive more information's about all cancer -questions - Links and last research NEW's - visit the http://www.cancer-info.info.

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