The staging process usually indicates how far spread is the cancer in the human body.

There are many types of cancers and to detect the prostate cancer doctors often use the screening tests and as a last resort the biopsy procedure.



If the patient is diagnosed with cancer, the Gleason scale is used to classify the stages of the cancer: scores from two to four indicate a slow growing tumor, scores from five to six indicate an intermediate aggressiveness of the tumor, while scores from seven to ten indicate the rapid growth of the cancerous tumor.

The TNM staging system, which stands for tumor, nodes and metastatic, shows exactly how spread is the disease: stage I, stage II, stage III and stage IV.

Obvious, the final stages are III and IV when the cancer becomes metastasized.

In stage III the tumor has barely spread to the surrounding areas of the prostate but in stage IV the cancer is metastasized and has spread to the bones, lungs, liver and the lymph nodes.

The Whitmore-Jewett staging is very similar to the TNM system and one of the few differences between them is the replacement of the roman numerals with Latin letters.

According to this staging system the final stages of the prostate cancer are C and D: in stage C, the tumor is in the surrounding area of the prostate but chances are that it also entered the seminal vesicles, in substage C1 the cancerous cells have spread through the capsule containing the prostate and in substage C2 the cancer began to block the urine flown from the ureters or the bladder outlet; in stage D, the cancer has spread far from the prostate gland and is known as the stage of metastatic cancer.

In substage D0 the blood tests indicate that the cancer has spread in the body even though the imaging tests and examination indicate otherwise; in substage D1 the cancer is found in the lymph nodes; in substage D2 the cancer has spread to the other organs surrounding the prostate and to the bones; in substage D3, by following the prescribed treatment, the cancer is similar as in stage D2, without further advancing.

In this advanced stage the cancer can cause chest pains and coughing if the lungs are affected but also give an appearance of yellow skin and unbearable pains in the abdomen if the malignant tumor has spread to the liver. If the spinal cord is affected, the tumor will cause a compression of the spine, resulting in muscle weakness or fecal and urinary incontinence.

The spreading process is done by invading the neighboring tissues, through the lymph vessels and lymph nodes or by traveling through the bloodstream to far away tissues so the tumor is either organ-confined or locally advanced, and in the worst case metastatic, but doctors strongly advise men over the age of forty to regularly do the screening tests for the early detection of the prostate cancer.

Treatments are made available but they will be less effective if the tumor is far advanced.

Untreated, this illness will eventually lead to a painful death so surely the best thing is to prevent this terrible situation for as much as possible.