Diagnosis, Staging, and Complications of Cancer

Approach to Care of Cancer
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Approach to Care of Cancer
Overview
Cancer is a combination of ailments that is characterized by unrestrained cell division and development. This unrestrained cell duplication and development gives rise to the creation of acute tumors that quickly spread to nearby body parts. If not treated in its early stages, cancer also progresses to other parts of the body mainly through blood flow or the lymphatic system. For many years, scholars have tried to conduct studies to establish the real cause of cancer. Most of the studies have however indicated that tobacco use, obesity, and radiation are the main causes of cancer. Research carried over the years has shown that early detection of cancer is critical in effectively combating the disease (Bodenheimer, & Wagner, 2013). The main reason for this is that it allows the disease to be treated before it can progress to other parts of the body. Although everyone is at a risk of contracting cancer, the risk is seen to be greater among the aged population. The advancement of age increases the human fear of death due to the contending forces of death, curtailed life expectancy, and greater threats of diseases such as cancer. Comprehending the diagnosis and the manner in which cancer progresses is critical when designing the various treatment options for individual patients. This paper examines the prognosis of and various stages of the disease, its complications and the side effects of the cure, and the available methods to lessen physical and psychological effects.
Diagnosis and Staging of Cancer
Diagnosis refers to the process of establishing whether a patient is suffering from a certain ailment. In order to conduct a prognosis of cancer, a doctor must first examine a specimen of the affected organ in the laboratory. What this means is that once an individual or the doctor suspects that the patient is suffering from cancer, then a biopsy has to be undertaken. A biopsy entails surgically removing a small portion of tissue that is then examined under a microscope. Examining the tissue microscopically allows the physician to detect the presence of a tumor and also to know whether the tumor contains cancerous cells or not (Lutgendorf, & Sood, 2010).
The main methods of removing samples for a biopsy are endoscopy, needle biopsy, or surgical biopsy. Endoscopy refers to a process and method in which, a doctor makes use of a thin, lightened tube to scan areas inside the body. This process allows the doctor to monitor what is happening, take images, as well as to extract samples for examination. On the other hand, needle biopsy entails the use of a special needle to extract tissue from a certain area while a surgical biopsy entails a surgical removal of a tumor either partially or entirely for examination (Lutgendorf, & Sood, 2010).
Once a physician has established that a certain body tissue has cancer cells, the next phase involves establishing how aggressive the cancer is since this helps in defining the right treatment modality. This is achieved by establishing whether the tumors resemble the normal cells from the area where they have been extracted or whether they are entirely different from the normal cells. Essentially, tum...