Cancer of Prostate

Prostate cancer stages are complex. They are dictated by how far the cancer has spread at the time of diagnosis and determine the exact magnitude of the cancer’s spread. The cancer first grows within the prostate, often for many years. After this it will spread beyond the prostate into neighboring tissues, the lymph system and lastly to distant tissues ( like the liver and bones ) through the blood – the metastasis or advanced stage.

There are more than one way of classifying prostate cancer and in some cases a combination of more than one system can be applied, but by and large classification by stages 1 – 5 is the more common.

Stage 1
Prostate cancer is found in the prostate only and it is very small. Chances are that it will not show on the Digital Rectal Exam and the Prostate SA tests.

Stage 2
The tumor has grown but is still only confined to the prostate.

Stage 3
The tumor has began to spread outside the prostate and may now affect nearby tissues like the seminal canal

Stage 4
The cancer has spread to other tissues outside the prostate like the bladder and the rectum

Stage 5
The prostate cancer has now spread to the lymph nodes and tissues, the bones, lungs and liver.

Each of these stages are in turn divided into other sub-stages, for example Stage 2 will have T2, T2a, T2b, T2c,  and so on.
Once a diagnosis has been done, accurate identification of the prostate cancer stages is critical so as to determine optimal treatment of prostate cancer and prognosis. It is important to carry out extensive testing to arrive at the correct stage.