Understanding A Colorectal Cancer Diagnosis.
When you’re diagnosed with colorectal cancer, your doctor needs to find how advanced
the disease is, or how far it has spread. This important part of your diagnosis
is known as staging. This section explains tests and definitions that are used in
staging.
Cancer staging is important because:
- It tells how much cancer there is in your body and where it’s located.
- Knowing the extent of the disease helps your doctor develop the right treatment
plan.
- It gives your healthcare team a common language to talk about your treatment.
Here are some of the tests used to determine the stage of your colorectal cancer:
- Blood Tests: The level of certain substances in the blood is checked. For
example, some people who have colorectal cancer or other conditions have a high
carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) level
.
- Colonoscopy: If a
colonoscopy
was not used for your original diagnosis, the entire length of your colon is examined
to check for any other abnormal areas.
- Biopsy: During a
colonoscopy
or
sigmoidoscopy
an abnormal growth may be found of which doctors will want to take a sample, or
biopsy. This sample may come from the colon and/or rectal area. Other biopsies may
also be taken of nearby lymph nodes in order fully to evaluate the stage of your disease
and to determine the best treatment for you.
- Endorectal Ultrasound (EUS): An ultrasound probe is inserted into
the rectum. The probe sends out sound waves (out of range of human hearing) that
bounce off the rectum and nearby tissues. A computer-generated picture, created
from the echoes, shows how deep a rectal tumor has grown or if the cancer has spread
to lymph
nodes or other nearby tissues.
- Chest X-ray: X-rays of the chest can show whether cancer has spread
to the lungs.
- CT Scan: An X-ray machine linked to a computer takes a series of
detailed pictures of areas inside the body. The patient may receive an injection
of dye. Tumors in the liver, lungs, or other places in the body show up on the CT
scan.
Your doctor may also use other tests, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI),
to see if the cancer has spread. Sometimes staging is not complete until you have
surgery to remove the tumor, and the surgeon can observe whether the tumor has metastasized.
For colorectal cancer, there are four stages of tumor growth.
|
Stage I
|
Cancer is confined and has not spread to neighboring tissue.
Your treatment is most likely surgery.
|
|
Stage II
|
Cancer has spread beyond the original (primary) site, but there is no lymph node
involvement.
Treatment options are usually surgery and sometimes chemotherapy.
|
|
Stage III |
Cancer has spread beyond the original (primary) site to nearby lymph nodes but not
to other parts of the body.
Your treatment options are usually surgery, chemotherapy and sometimes radiation.
|
|
Stage IV |
Cancer has spread to distant organs.
Your treatment options may include chemotherapy, surgery, radiation and biological
therapy.
|
During surgery, another very important staging procedure is lymph node sampling.
Learn more about why it is important to make sure this test is done
properly.
