Stage 4 Breast Cancer
Stage 4 breast cancer is an invasive type of cancer.
It means that the cancer cells have already spread to other organs of the body which includes the brain, lungs and liver.
When a diagnosed patient is already at this phase of the disease, it is called metastasis.
Usually, the survival rate for this stage is close to none, given the fact that improvements in terms of medication are clearly evident.
You should not be confused with the terms such as, early or later stages of breast cancer.
Remember that these terms are not precise; however they are widely used by doctors to be more precise in labelling stages.
The general idea for the early stage of stage 4 breast cancer do not differ that much on how doctors' apply other diseases when it comes to staging.
When it comes to the early stage, there are four classifications.
The stage 0, stage 1, stage II and stage III.
The later or advanced stages are as follows: stage III and stage IV.
In order to determine how far a cancer has spread, doctors use a staging system.
TNM is the most common staging system used.
You may hear of cancer being described as size T (the T stands for tumor), lymph node involvement (N is for node) and whether it has metastasized (M means metastasis).
I know these terms could really be confusing, let us scrutinize them even more.
The T means the size of the primary tumor while the N is for the node involvement.
N involvement is important in order to determine if the cancer cells have already spread nearby lymph nodes.
Lastly, the M category is for metastasis which tells if the tumor have already reached the other parts of the body.
There are several categories in relation to the mentioned three terminologies.
Here are the following lists for T, N and M: (T) • TX significantly means the tumor can no longer be measures nor found • T0 means there are no more evidence of the primary tumor • Tis means the tumor already started to grow on the breast tissue (N) • NX means the nearby lymph nodes that can no longer be found nor measured • N0 means the nearby lymph nodes do not get hold of cancer anymore (M) • MX means the metastasis can no longer be found nor measured • M0 means that there are no remote metastases that could be found anymore • M1 significantly means that distant metastases were found.
It means that the cancer cells have already spread to other organs of the body which includes the brain, lungs and liver.
When a diagnosed patient is already at this phase of the disease, it is called metastasis.
Usually, the survival rate for this stage is close to none, given the fact that improvements in terms of medication are clearly evident.
You should not be confused with the terms such as, early or later stages of breast cancer.
Remember that these terms are not precise; however they are widely used by doctors to be more precise in labelling stages.
The general idea for the early stage of stage 4 breast cancer do not differ that much on how doctors' apply other diseases when it comes to staging.
When it comes to the early stage, there are four classifications.
The stage 0, stage 1, stage II and stage III.
The later or advanced stages are as follows: stage III and stage IV.
In order to determine how far a cancer has spread, doctors use a staging system.
TNM is the most common staging system used.
You may hear of cancer being described as size T (the T stands for tumor), lymph node involvement (N is for node) and whether it has metastasized (M means metastasis).
I know these terms could really be confusing, let us scrutinize them even more.
The T means the size of the primary tumor while the N is for the node involvement.
N involvement is important in order to determine if the cancer cells have already spread nearby lymph nodes.
Lastly, the M category is for metastasis which tells if the tumor have already reached the other parts of the body.
There are several categories in relation to the mentioned three terminologies.
Here are the following lists for T, N and M: (T) • TX significantly means the tumor can no longer be measures nor found • T0 means there are no more evidence of the primary tumor • Tis means the tumor already started to grow on the breast tissue (N) • NX means the nearby lymph nodes that can no longer be found nor measured • N0 means the nearby lymph nodes do not get hold of cancer anymore (M) • MX means the metastasis can no longer be found nor measured • M0 means that there are no remote metastases that could be found anymore • M1 significantly means that distant metastases were found.
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