Prostate Cancer: Understanding the Stages

If you or someone you love has just been diagnosed with prostate cancer, it can be hard to make sense of all of the information you're being bombarded with. I hope that this article can help you to understand the stages of prostate cancer so that you can be better armed to fight it.

There are two popular systems for staging prostate cancer, and I'll spare you the medical jargon and try to put in layman's terms what it means.

Stage I Prostate Cancer

Stage I refers to cancer that is only in the prostate gland. It has not spread. It cannot be felt during a digital rectal examination, nor is it visible by imaging. Normally, it causes no symptoms. Usually it is found accidentally or because a PSA (prostate specific antigen) test showed elevated PSA levels, which is why regular screenings are so important. Regardless of whether the cancer is in one area of the prostate, or several, as long as the tissue mutation is still minimal, it's still in stage I.

Stage II Prostate Cancer

Stage II refers to cancer that is still localized within the prostate itself, but it has caused enough tissue mutation to typically be found during a digital rectal examination. Sometimes it's still not found this way, but by the PSA test showing elevated PSA levels.

Stage III Prostate Cancer

Stage III refers to cancer that has spread outside the covering of the prostate gland to tissues surrounding the prostate. It can spread to the seminal vesicles or other local organs and tissues. It has not yet hit the lymph nodes.

Stage IV Prostate Cancer

Stage IV refers to cancer that has spread outside the prostate glands to the lymph nodes. Lymph nodes can carry cancer to other organs and tissues and spread it throughout the body. This is how one type of cancer spreads to places like bones, the liver, or the lungs.

Approximately three quarters of all newly diagnosed prostate cancers are in the first two categories (stage I or II). Around 15 percent are stage III, and 11 percent are stage IV.

Prognosis for stages I and II is typically excellent. Median age for diagnosis is age 72, and the disease-specific survival rate (which means the patients that don't die from prostate cancer) is almost 90%. The chances of this kind of prostate cancer metastasizing depends greatly on the type of tumors present within the prostate gland. Well-differentiated tumors are at much lower risk of metastasizing than extensive or poorly differentiated tumors. The more poorly differentiated the tumors are, the more aggressively your doctor may try to treat it to prevent poor outcomes.

Prognosis for stage III depends on the extent of the disease. Once cancer has broken through the prostate capsule (spread past the prostate), chances of disease progression are about 50%. If the cancer has spread to the seminal vesicles, the likelihood of recurrence is greater.

Prognosis for stage IV, also called metastatic prostate cancer, depends on how far the cancer has spread due to the lymph nodes. Hormonal therapy can slow progress of the disease and improve symptoms for 2-3 years. If just the lymph nodes are involved, hormonal therapy can delay progress of the cancer even longer. If the prostate cancer has spread to the bones, however, the tumors involved will be less responsive to hormonal therapy.

Unfortunately, if prostate cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, a man's risk of developing additional metastatic cancer within 10 years after the treatment is higher.

It can be difficult to get good answers when you or a loved one is diagnosed with prostate cancer. Much of the information you're given seems impersonal and even that doesn't have the answers. Your doctor can't even tell you how your cancer will progress, he can just give you his best guess based on statistics related to the stage you're in. Prostate cancer is a very common form of cancer, but fortunately, most cases are caught early enough for treatments to be effective and as non-invasive as possible so that you can continue to live a full life.

Sources

prostate-cancer.emedtv.com

prostatecancerfoundation.org