Most people just know breast cancer as breast cancer. However, breast cancer comes in stages, depending on how long it has spent on the body. For instance the stages ranging from zero to two are usually called the early stages. The ones in stage three are tagged the advanced stages, and the final stage, stage four is the late stage. It is important for you to know the stage of your cancer so you can have a better understanding of the implications and what it entails in terms of treatment.
Stage zero is the DCIS stage, an acronym for ductal carcinoma in situ. In this stage, the breast cancer can be found in the ducts that line the milk duct from the lobules to the nipples. As long as the cancer cells have not spread any further and are just in the ducts of the breasts, it can still be diagnosed as DCIS. It cannot be seen by an ordinary person, but a pathologist can detect its presence when ex examines the breast tissue under a microscope. Here is a little rule of thumb for you: if the lesion from the DCIS is small, you should have no fear yet. There is no reason for the cancer to spread to other parts of the breast tissue.
Next we have the stage one cancer. This is called the invasive or infiltrative stage of the cancer. In this stage, cancer cells that were previously confined to the milk ducts would have broken through and begun invading surrounding tissues as well. Hence, you can find traces of these cells outside the ducts too. If this is the case, doctors will need to perform an analysis to determine whether the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes surrounding the area. Usually, the target tissues for removal during a surgical operation include the tissues affected by the DCIS and infiltrative stages of cancer. A typical stage one cancer is usually smaller that two centimeters in size, and should not have spread to the lymph nodes. Sometimes the patient might have multiple cancer – that is cancer in various sites. In this instance, the sizes of all the cancer cells are added up to get the final size of the cancer lump.
Next in the line is the stage two cancer. This is further subdivided into two groups: Stage 2A and stage 2B. In stage two A, the cancer size is usually lesser than two centimeters and has usually gotten to the axillary – that is, the armpit – nodes. The axillary nodes are also called the positive nodes. In stage two B, the cancer size is between two centimeters and five centimeters and has usually gotten to nodes. If, however it hasn’t spread to nodes, it might be more than 6cm.
Stage three cancer is cancer larger than 5 cm and have gotten to the nodes. These stick together at the nodes and sometimes might be found stuck to the chest wall and the pectoralis muscles.
Stage four cancer occurs outside the breast and usually occur in the bone, liver, lungs or brain. The size does not matter here.