Cancer: Diagnosis and Approach to Care

Approach to Care
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Cancer is a disorder that results from spontaneous division of abnormal cells in a part of a body. This has been a menace that has claimed many lives around the globe. Symptoms of cancer are not actually caused by cancer itself but by the tumors or other problems arising from cancer.
Diagnosis involves procedures and tests that help identify if the symptoms are really for cancer or just any other problem. Staging gives the details concerning how large and far has the tumor spread. Staging helps the doctor determine the necessary treatment.
When a patient suspects symptoms for cancer or the screening shows that there might be a possibility of cancer existing, a biopsy is performed. This involves taking a sample from tissue for microscopic observation. By doing this, a doctor will determine if tumor is present and if there is a possibility that it is either cancerous or vice versa.
There are three ways of extracting the tissue: endoscopy, surgical and by needle means. In endoscopy, the doctor observes tissues of the internal structures with the aid of a small lighted tube. From here, they take pictures or remove a sample of the tissue if need be. Needle biopsy involves extracting tissues from the suspected area using a needle for examination. Surgical biopsy can be performed via two methods namely excisional method and incisional method. Through excisional method, the entire tumor plus a little of surrounding tissues is removed. Incision involves removing just a sample of the tumor but when cancer if found, the whole tumor is extracted though.
Determination of the presence of cancer is followed by the establishment of the exact rate at which tumor is growing and its ‘aggressiveness’. This is done by observing the tissues under a microscope to find out if the tumor is undifferentiated/ poorly differentiated or are well differentiated. Undifferentiated tumor cells may resemble the normal tissues just a little or may have no resemblance at all. Well differentiated tumor cells resemble the normal cells. Undifferentiated tumor cells are more aggressive than differentiated tumor cells. They spread earlier, grow faster and their effects are more adverse.
Once the process of diagnosis is accomplished, the next process that follows is called the staging of cancer. Here, the doctor wants to fight out to what extent has cancer spread in the body. Based on the results of staging, the doctor can determine the treatment to be administered. There are four common stages in this part namely, the in situ stage, the local stage, the regional stage and finally the distant stage.
Cancer is present but the spread to other tissues is yet in the in situ stage. In the local stage, it is only in the organ affected that cancer can be found. The next stage is regional and here, cancer can be observed in other body tissues including the lymph nodes. The in situ of cancer serves a greater chance of receiving full cure. Localized cancer too has a good chance of being cured or controlled. Localized cancer is cancer that has extended greatly in an organ but has not spread to other organs.
Tumors which have started the spreading process can be categorized in accordance with thei...