Having been diagnosed with prostate cancer it’s vital that the stage and growth rate of the cancer is established, so that a treatment option can be chosen which will give you the greatest benefit. This means determining the spread of cancer, if any, away from the prostate gland itself and the manner in which the cancer is growing.
In many ways prostate cancer cells are just like any other cells of the body and will go through various stages of growth and there are a number of tests which can be performed, and grading systems which can be used, to determine and classify the stage of growth of prostate cancer cells.
One of the most widely used grading systems is known as the Gleason system. Here cancer cells are compared to normal cells and given a grading to indicated their appearance in comparison to normal cells. The grading scale runs from 1 to 5, with 1 representing a cell which is quite similar to a normal cell and 5 indicating a cell which bears little resemblance to a normal cell.
One problem with this method is that cells in different areas of the prostate may be at different stages of development. In order to obtain an overall Gleason score therefore the scores are taken from the two areas which are most affected by cancer and the scores are then added together to produce an overall score which will lie between 2 and 10, with a score of 10 indicating a particularly aggressive form of prostate cancer.
To determine the extent to which cancer has spread a commonly used system is the TNM system, which uses a combination of the size of the tumor, the extent to which the lymph nodes have been affected and the presence of other metastases (related cancers appearing in sites other than the prostate gland). Prostate cancer is then classified as being T1, T2, T3 or T4 cancer.
T1 and T2 indicate a cancer which is confined to the prostate gland and T3 and T4 designate a cancer which has spread beyond the prostate gland. When T3 and T4 cancer is present further tests will be carried out to determine the extent of spread outside of the prostate gland.
Prostate cancer is unique to each individual and, while some cancers are quite slow growing, others are extremely aggressive and can spread very rapidly. In many cases unfortunately prostate cancer is not diagnosed until the cancer is quite well advanced and has often spread beyond the prostate gland. However, as awareness of the problem posed by prostate cancer is increasing and, with it, the chances of survival following diagnosis is also increasing.
