We all know the lung cancer has 4 stages in order of increasing intensity and malignancy of the cancer or the tumor. For a layman, the understanding is pretty simple and he/ she hardly bothers what actually goes on in these different stages of lung cancer. Let’s see how a layman perceives lung cancer stages and what is actually they are:
1) Stage I – The tumor is very small and can be easily removed.
2) Stage II – This is more dangerous than stage I but the damage can still be under control.
3) Stage III – This is when the patient starts hearing the death knell or is sure of his or her demise as the cancer is now ‘too big’ to manage or be treated by the doctors.
4) Stage IV – The patient now forgoes the hope to live and is waiting for the sickness to fully destroy the remains of life.
Is it really the way A doctor would put it to a patient suffering from lung cancer? Such brutal way of putting things may just kill a patient in the third stage itself before any of the therapies are even tried.
Layman or not, understanding about the stages of lung cancer is very crucial for anyone who likes to live out their moments of live in the smoke of cigarettes. It’s not said for nothing that knowledge is power and a smoker must acquaint himself or herself with all the literature there is about lung cancer. Stop believing in hearsay and what is not relevant to you, what’s important is that one knows the right thing. It may even be useful in saving the life of an individual.
The real deal on Stages of Lung Cancer is as follows:
1) Stage I – the cancer in this stage remains localized to the place of origin. It further has two stages IA and IB. This is also known as the benign cancer. Treatment is effective if detected in time and curative measures are undertaking immediately.
2) Stage II – The tumor starts to expand and extend to other parts of the lung tissue such as the bronchus and lymph nodes. It falls under the benign category as well.
3) Stage III – The cancer now goes to other parts/ organs of the body. Starting from the neighboring lung to the brain; the tumor can spread to different tissues of the organs. Chest and heart are also at risk.
4) Stage IV – Now the tumor has invaded completely into other parts as well. These can be stomach, liver or the brain. Such extreme spread of cancer is called malignant cancer.
Stages of lung cancer are detected by using unique methods and technology. Detection and assessment of lung cancer staging is extremely crucial as it determines the therapy to be given to the patient. So even as a layman one must know these terminology and lung cancer development stages to understand the changes that body may go through and to communicate better with the medical authorities.
