There are a lot of women suffering from lung cancer and they could be interested in the stages of lung cancer in women. Just as in case of any other type of cancer, the staging depends on the extent to which the cancer has spread to the different organs to the body.
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Information about the women’s lung cancer stages
Staging means the evaluation of the cancer’s size and the penetration into the other tissues along with the metastases into the surrounding organs and lymph nodes. Staging has a very important role to play in the determination of the kind of treatment that should be used.
When thinking about the stages of women’s lung cancer it is good to know that each stage has specific recommended treatment options. In the same time staging is also used to give an outlook to the patients. The higher the stage of the cancer is, the poorer the patient’s outlook.
Determining the stages of lung cancer in women
In order to determine the stage of the cancer, the doctors have to run several tests. These include laboratory tests (like blood chemistry tests), CT scans, X-rays, MRI scans, bone tests and also PET scans. If the blood tests turn out to be abnormal, it is possible that the cancer is present in the liver and the bones as well.
The kinds of lung cancer stages in women
In order to determine the extent of the cancer, the doctors often use radiological procedures. Officially there are four different stages of lung cancer. The first stage means that the cancer cells can only be found in the lungs and they didn’t spread to the surrounding tissue yet.
The second and third stages of lung cancer in women mean that the cancer cells have spread to the other organs of the chest. The smaller tumors are said to be stage two cancers, while if the patient has a larger tumor, she is said to have stage three lung cancer.
Just as you may have thought regarding the women’s stages of lung cancer, stage four means that the cancer isn’t confined only to the chest, but it has spread to the other organs of the body as well. There is another system too to stage lung cancer. In this case, we are talking about limited stage and extensive stage.
Nowadays knowing the facts about stages of lung cancer in women may make it easier to identify it and seek treatment in the early stages.
