Cancer is a term used to describe more than 100 diseases; a doctor will diagnose a particular type of cancer depending on how it behaves and the rate of its growth in the body. It is essential to understand the cancer cells so as to provide your body with the recommended nutrition to control and prevent the disease. Staging is a process of understanding the location of the cancer and how much it is in the body, the doctors will often use the information received from staging to help them plan for better treatment. Cancer with the same stages are given similar treatment because they exhibit an identical outlook.
Stage 0: Any cell which becomes a cancer cell will do so with the help of other similar cells. It will produce a tumor in that tissue it affects but will pose little or absolutely no threat to life. In this stage, the cancer is referred to “in situ”. This means that the cancer is in the position where it started and has not yet spread to neighboring tissues. The prognosis for stage 0 cancer is often high. Its recurrences prevented by surgical removal of the entire tumor.
Stage I: The cancer cells at this stage have an ability to pass through the membrane of the tissue where the cancer began and invade the nearby tissue. This is a serious step since the growing cancer cell now becomes a threat to life. At this stage, the cancer remains in a localized state, this is because the cancer partly remains in the tissue where it began and partially in the neighboring tissue as a single lump.
Stage II and III: Once the cancer cell has invaded a tissue, one of its daughter cells will therefore invade other cells via a lymph vessel. At this stage, the cancer extends and embeds itself more deeply into the neighboring tissues. The cancer cells enter the bloodstream and can be detected in the lymph system; this is because cancer cells can be trapped by the nodes as they travel. You should boost your immune system at this stage since an invasion of your lymph system may trigger an immune response that will shut off all the mutations.
Stage IV: This is referred to as “distant spread” cancer because it spreads from its position to other organs of the body. At this stage, the cancer is difficult to treat. The lymph nodes cells extend further to the lymph nodes and even the stream of the blood. Once in the bloodstream, the cancer cells can spread to any part of the body.