Stages

Today, doctors use stages to indicate the severity of a cancer diagnosis. In addition, several different systems have been created to help doctors determine a patient’s prognosis and ideal course of treatment more accurately. In the staging of mesothelioma cancer, three systems exist to aid doctors and patients in diagnosis.

However, these staging systems only apply to pleural mesothelioma, which attacks the lungs of individuals. This is because other forms of mesothelioma are far less common, affecting individuals with relative infrequence. However, patients can still apply any of these staging systems to the other forms of this cancer, although they generally work best with pleural mesothelioma.

Though similar in many ways, each of the three systems used to stage mesothelioma measure several factors of a patient’s malignant mesothelioma. Each staging system considers the tumor’s size, location, cell type, whether the cancer has metastasized and whether the patient’s lymph nodes have been reached by the disease.

The accurate staging of mesothelioma is extremely important because doctors use this initial diagnosis to determine the course of treatment a patient should choose. Mesothelioma in particular demands a quick diagnosis and appropriate treatment plan because it can spread very quickly and is frequently only diagnosed in an advanced stage.

The initial steps taken after a cancer diagnosis are arguably the most important, and correct staging are a huge part of these initial actions. To facilitate the accurate staging of mesothelioma cancer, doctors utilize several types of tests. These include:

    * Imaging Scans
    * Laboratory tests
    * Pathology tests
    * Physical examinations
    * Surgical tests

After staging a patient’s cancer, doctors should then reveal their findings and a treatment plan should be discussed and mutually agreed upon. In addition to the stage of the cancer, a patient’s age, health status and specific health wishes all dictate the course of treatment doctors and patients choose.

References:

Doherty, Gerard M. (2010). Current Diagnosis and Treatment Surgery. 13th ed.

Posted in: Mesothelioma Prognosis