Stages Of Pancreatic Cancer
It is important to stage cancer before its treatment. It helps to detect the spread of cancer within different parts of body. The different tests or scans and diagnosis provide details of stages that observe the growth of pancreatic cancer. Therefore, the treatments and patient's recovery period depends on the stage of pancreatic cancer.
Pancreatic cancer can be staged through different ways. The two methods mostly recommended by doctors include TNM and number systems.
TNM Stages
The term TNM is used to denote tumor, Node and metastases. This system can help to detect how much the cancer cells have spread in lymph nodes and in other parts of body. As per the TNM system, tumors are staged into five different categories. These five stages include:
- T- It is an early stage of a tumor. It is so inactive that it can not spread over any other parts of body. It also has different features than other types of cancer tumors.
- T1- At this level, the tumor develops maximum 2cm within node lymph.
- T2- Tumor’s size increases more than 2cm in any direction.
- T3- At this stage, the cancer cells starts to spread into other parts near to pancreas. Cancer reaches to the duodenum also.
- T4- The pancreatic cancer cells spread into spleen, stomach and into blood vessels also.
Four stages of Pancreatic Cancer
This system contains four stages of pancreatic cancer:
- Stage 1
At this earliest stage, cancer exists only within pancreas. It doesn't spread in lymph nodes or any other organs of body. This stage is similar to T1 of T2 stage of TNM system.
- Stage 2
Cancer starts to spread within tissues near to pancreas and duodenum. However, it has spread out of pancreas, but there are no chances that it has affected the lymph nodes. This stage is equivalent to the T3 stage of TNM system.
- Stage 3
The cancer tumor has spread over other tissues out of pancreas. It also spreads through the lymph nodes, so here are chances for its spread into other organs from lymph system. This stage also is similar to the T2 or T3 level of TNM system.
- Stage 4
This stage includes two levels 4A and 4B.4A signals the existence of cancer cells into pancreas' nearby organs- spleen, stomach and blood vessels. It is uncertain whether cancer has affected the lymph nodes. The T4 level of TNM system is similar to this stage.
In 4B stage, cancer spreads is found into other distant organs like lungs and liver. This is an advanced stage of pancreatic cancer.
