This topic will make you understand why it is important to do monthly breast exam. The earlier the cancer is detected, the better the prognosis.
Breast cancer staging
Breast cancer staging
To stage cancer, the American Joint Committee on Cancer, first places the cancer in a letter category using the tumor, nodes, metastasis (TNM) classification system. The stage of a breast cancer describes its size and the extent to which it has spread. The staging system ranges from stage 0 to stage IV according to tumor size, lymph nodes involved, and distant metastasis.
T indicates tumor size. The letter T is followed by a number from 0 to 4, which describes the size of the tumor and whether it has spread to the skin or chest wall under the breast. Higher T numbers indicate a larger tumor and/or more extensive spread to tissues surrounding the breast.
- TX: The tumor cannot be assessed.
- T0: No evidence of a tumor is present.
- Tis: The cancer may be LCIS, DCIS, or Paget disease.
- T1: The tumor is 2 cm or smaller in diameter.
- T2: The tumor is 2-5 cm in diameter.
- T3: The tumor is more than 5 cm in diameter.
- T4: The tumor is any size, and it has attached itself to the chest wall and spread to the pectoral (chest) lymph nodes.
- NX: Lymph nodes cannot be assessed (eg, lymph nodes were previously removed).
- N0: Cancer has not spread to lymph nodes.
- N1: Cancer has spread to the movable ipsilateral axillary lymph nodes (underarm lymph nodes on the same side as the breast cancer).
- N2: Cancer has spread to ipsilateral lymph nodes (on the same side of the body as the breast cancer), fixed to one another or to other structures under the arm.
- N3: Cancer has spread to the ipsilateral mammary lymph nodes or the ipsilateral supraclavicular lymph nodes (on the same side of the body as the breast cancer).
- MX: Metastasis cannot be assessed.
- M0: No distant metastasis to other organs is present.
- M1: Distant metastasis to other organs has occurred.
