Staging and Grading of Prostate Cancer

Staging and Grading

Once the diagnosis of prostate cancer has been made the disease has to be staged and graded. The stage refers to the extent and spread of the disease while the grade refers to the nature (aggressiveness) of the particular tumor. Staging will determine the extent of disease and provide important prognostic information that will influence the management decisions.

Staging investigations - PSA - X-rays of lumbar spine and pelvis - Chest X-ray - Radionuclitide bone scan - MTI scan of pelvis

TNM Staging system

T stage (extent of primary lesion)

- T1 - tumor confined to prostate, not palpable or visible on TRUS - T2 - tumor palpable or visible on TRUS but confined to prostate - T3 - spread beyond the prostatic capsule - T3a - extracapsular spread only - T3b - involvement of the seminal vesicles - T4 - invasion into rectal wall, bladder neck or pelvic wall N (Nodal) status - N0 - regional nodes not involved - N1 - regional nodes involved by tumor M (Distant Metastases) - M0 - no distant metastases - M1 - distant metastases present

Grading

Grading refers to what the cancer looks like under a microscope. The most commonly used system is the Gleason grade and score. The glandular pattern is compared to that of a normal prostate and scored out of 5, where 1 resembles a pattern very close to normal and 5 resembles severely distorted glandular architecture. The two predominant glandular patterns within the cancer are graded out of 5 and the combined score calculated out of 10. The higher the Gleason score, the more aggressive is the tumor and the worse is the prognosis. Patients with cancers confined to the prostate (T1 and T2) and no involvement of the lymph nodes or other organs (N0 and M0) are potentially curable by surgery or radiotherapy. Patients with disease beyond the prostate are not curable.

With our next information – we will inform you about the "Risk factors for enlarged prostate" – so you should have a look on this site in the next 2 weeks! If you have any question sends us your e-mail.

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About The Author
Fritz Frei make it easy to check out the important details about the diagnoses and test's of the prostate cancer. To receive more information's about all cancer -questions - Links and last research NEW's - visit the http://www.cancer-info.info.

What to do For Enlarged Prostate or for Prostate Cancer

By age of 50, most men will already have an enlarged prostate and three of these men will have cancer cells forming in their prostate. Prostate cancer is the main cancer found in men and by age 75 three out of four men will have prostate cancer.

The facts are pretty clear, if you are a male you will have to deal with BPH, enlarged prostate, or prostate cancer.

So how do you know if you have BPH or prostate cancer? Well, here are a few of the symptoms:

" getting up at night to urinate
" having difficulty urinating
" not completely emptying your bladder
" having pain during sex
" having pain when urinating

Medical test that you can get for enlarged prostate or prostate cancer.

" PSA, prostate specific antigen, which gives a good indication of your prostate health
" PAP, prostate acid phosphatase, a test that is more accurate than PSA, but many doctors don't use it or are unfamiliar with it.
" Sonogram is a safe and accurate way to check your prostate
" MRI, magnetic resonance imaging, is also accurate but is the most expensive test.

There is other tests that doctors like to make and that is,

Biopsy of the prostate - Don't have it done. It's very harmful to the prostate and should never be done.

The ideal way to take care of prostate health issues is to change or improve you diet and lifestyle. Here are some area that you need to look at to make changes.

" diet
" supplement
" fasting
" hormone balancing
" eliminate addictive substances - smoking, alcohol, coffee, non-herbal tea)
" exercise
" stress, anxiety, and emotional issues

The first thing you need to do is start using a supplement that will start to heal your prostate condition. Then you need to change your diet. Here I will tell which supplement to buy immediately and in another article I will outline a good diet to follow.

Go out and immediately but a supplement that contains Beta-sitosterol. You will find beta-sitosterol in saw palmetto and pygeum africanum, but these herbal plants have very little beta-sitosterol. This make them useless for prostate health. You need 325 to 610 mg per day and these herbal products 30 mg or less.

A good beta-sitosterol to buy is the NSI Phytosterol Complex with Beta-sitosterol -- 240 Tablets. This is only $20.00 plus shipping.

You will find this product contains the following ingredients:

Betasitosterol
Stigmasterol
Campesterol
Brassicasterol

All of these chemicals are called Phytosterol, which are consider the fat inside a plant. These sterols have an anti-inflammatory property and help to buildup your immune system. They have been found effective in reducing the inflammation of the prostate, BPH, lowering cholesterol, and aiding in many other illnesses.

Take the first step in keeping a health prostate and avoid having to deal with enlarged prostate or prostate cancer. Look for more of my articles on prostate health.

About The Author
Rudy Silva is a natural nutritionist. For more information and tips on a prostate diet that helps prostate cancer or an enlarged prostate go to: http://www.enlargeprostateinformation.com.