Cervical cancer staging is an artificial term created for describing the growth stage of the cancer. According to this the stage refers to the size, the spreading of the cancer to the cervix and also the depth of the penetration regarding the cervix.
Advantages obtained by the staging of the cervical cancer
With the help of staging, doctors can make sure that the treatments that they are using are efficient and also the way the cancer of the patient will develop in the future. Usually the lower the stage is, the better the outlook of the patient is.
The staging of the cervical cancer is used to describe the state of a given patient. The staging is done by using the information that is gathered through biopsy, meaning the tissue that has been removed in order to be analyzed.
The pathology report could also help to determine the cervical cancer staging. This is a report created based on the biopsy. There is also cystoscopy that can help with cancer cervical staging. This is a visual examination done with the help of a camera introduced in the urinary tract.
Abdominal ultrasound can also help with staging. This refers to an imaging procedure through which the doctors get an idea regarding the way the inner organs look.
In order to help with the staging of the cervical cancer a CT scan could also be used. In this case the doctor will see images created with the help of a computer.
Another procedure to gather information is the MRI that uses magnets in order to create an image of the inner organs.
The stages
In the majority of the cases when the doctors are using cancer cervical staging they are expressing the stages using the FIGO system. According to this there are five different stages, ranging from 0 to 4.
In stage 0 we are referring to a carcinoma in situ. This means that the cancerous cells can be found only in the epithelium and they don’t affect the deeper tissues.
If the doctor is staging the cervical cancer and he is talking about stage I, he is referring to an invasive tumor that can only be found in the cervix. There is stage IA that is the earliest stage, when there are only a small number of cancerous cells that could be seen using a microscope.
According to the staging of cervical cancer, stage IA1 means that the cancerous cells can be found in maximum 3 millimeters deep in the tissue and they have less than 7 millimeters in depth. In the following stage, IA2, the penetration into the tissue is of about 3-7 millimeters and the tumor is less than 7 millimeters wide.
Another milestone of the cervical cancer staging is stage IB, and in this case the tumors are big enough to be seen with the bare eye. Also there are the tumors that can only be seen under a microscope, but they are wider than 7 millimeters and have penetrated into the tissue.
