Cancer staging
process of determining the extent to which a cancer has developed by spreading
Cancer staging is the process of determining the extent to which a cancer has grown and spread. A number from I to IV is assigned, with I being an isolated cancer and IV being a cancer that has metastasized and spread from its origin. The stage generally takes into account the size of a tumor, whether it has invaded adjacent organs, how many regional (nearby) lymph nodes it has spread to (if any), and whether it has appeared in more distant locations (metastasized).
TNM staging system
Cancer staging can be divided into a clinical stage and a pathologic stage. In the TNM (Tumor, Node, Metastasis) system, clinical stage and pathologic stage are denoted by a small "c" or "p" before the stage (e.g., cT3N1M0 or pT2N0). This staging system is used for most forms of cancer, except brain tumors and hematological malignancies.
Clinical stage is based on all of the available information obtained before a surgery to remove the tumor. This stage may include information about the tumor obtained by physical examination, blood tests, radiologic examination, biopsy, and endoscopy.
Pathologic stage adds additional information gained by examination of the tumor microscopically by a pathologist after it has been surgically removed.
Because they use different criteria, clinical stage and pathologic stage often differ.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cancer staging” as process of determining the extent to which a cancer has developed by spreading. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as process of determining the extent to which a cancer has developed by spreading. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1752284. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cancer staging” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.