Steps in Cancer Diagnosis, Staging and its Physical and Psychological Implications

Approach to Care: Cancer Management
Name
Institutional Affiliation
Approach to Care: Cancer Management
Introduction
In diagnosis, staging and management of cancer, doctors rely on individual’s symptoms, the outcomes of physical examination and /or those of screening tests. At times, doctors may use other tests including but not limited to x-rays to pinpoint abnormalities which may be caused by cancer. Confirming that a patient is suffering from cancer may call for numerous tests also known as diagnostic tests. Once cancer is diagnosed, staging of the disease is required to determine how advanced the decease is. This includes determining how big the cancer tumor is or whether it has spread to other parts of the body or neighboring tissues. Screening tests in this case are used to detect whether cancer was present before the occurrence of symptoms (Chabner & Thompson, 2017). Notably, these tests are not definitive and confirmation requires additional tests. Diagnostic tests are conducted when the health practitioner suspects that the patient is suffering from cancer. This paper seeks to explicate the steps involved in cancer diagnosis, staging and the physical and psychological implications of the disease.
Diagnosis and Staging
Diagnosis
Early diagnosis of cancer is done through reference to the symptoms that a patient exhibit. This is in contrast with cancer screening which revolves around identifying unrecognized pre-cancerous or cancer lesions in a given population (WTO, 2017). An accurate clinical examination via physical examination and history taking can help reveal whether a patient is suffering from cancer or not. In some cases, the disease is incidentally detected during the treatment process involving unrelated diseases. When a doctor suspects that the patient is suffering from a given type of cancer, he or she will order additional tests including but not limited to plain x-rays, ultrasonography or computed tomography (Chabner & Thompson, 2017). Despite the fact that these tests may indicate cancer presence, location or tumor size, they may not be able to confirm the symptoms as being those of cancer. This calls for additional medical examination mainly through surgery and needle biopsy.
Staging
Once a patient has been diagnosed with cancer, the next step is staging. Cancer staging in this case helps in determining the extent of the disease in relation to its location, spread to neighboring tissues, size and spread to other organs of the body (Denton, et al. 2016). Cancer staging may call for various types or scans and imaging tests including x-rays, CT scans, bone scans and MRI. The choice of screening test to be conducted is dependent on the type of cancer that the patient has been diagnosed with. A CT scan for example is used in detecting cancer in various parts of the body including lungs, brain and abdomen while an MRI is used in detecting cancer in the brains, spinal cord and bones (WTO, 2017). Patients are often required to take biopsies tests to authenticate the existence of tumors for staging reasons. Such tests can be done in conjunction with surgical treatment procedures such as in the case of breast cancer.
Complications, Treatment Side Effects and Ways to Lessen Physic...