Metastatic Liver Cancer | Colon Cancer Staging

Colon Cancer Staging

Why Cancer Staging

Cancer staging is a way of identifying the cancer according to:

  1. size of the cancer
  2. has the cancer spread or not
  3. if the cancer has spread: how far has the cancer spread

Cancer staging is done in order to have a better idea of which cancer treatment should be used. For the patient, their family and loved ones: the lower the cancer stage, the better the outlook in having a cancer cure available.

Metastatic liver cancer unknown primary

Take father’s metastatic liver cancer with unknown primary as an example.

Since the primary cancer is unknown, the size of that cancer is so small it cannot be detected. You could say: hip, hip hurray my cancer is only small.

Yet when your cancer cannot be detected, means it cannot be pinpointed. That means if you need to undergo chemotherapy: you need to take an overall chemotherapy to try to kill all known cancers, as you don’t have any clue which cancer you are talking about.

So size does matter and the smallest sized cancer therefore doesn’t mean the best outcome.

Size vs spread

But most important is when you talk about a primary cancer, that means father’s liver cancer is secondary.

Meaning that the primary cancer has spread (to the liver). A cancer that has spread to another organ is a stage 4 cancer: therefore most likely no cancer cure.

The latter was exactly the case, which partly explains why father never went for chemotherapy.

Read more about each stage in our next post about colon cancer staging.

5 Comments

Comments

5 Responses to “Colon Cancer Staging”

  1. Metastatic liver cancer » Go give Patti a hug! on October 16th, 2007 3:41 pm

    [...] father, Patti has metastatic liver cancer from an unknown primary [...]

     
  2. Liver Cancer on October 10th, 2007 5:22 pm

    Hi Patti,

    I wish you lots of luck :-)

    It’s true: every case is different. Unlike you have 4 masses, father’s liver really looked like a raisin bread, so quite different.

    Hugs and feel free to guestblog here so more people can drop by on your blog after reading your story!

    You can guestblog about anything, the whole story, the questions, or just the pile of paperwork to fill in.

    Hugs!

    SK

  3. Patti on October 8th, 2007 7:59 am

    I have 4 masses in my liver – metasticized cancer in my liver with unknown primary.
    I’m in chemo now. Even with the same diagnosis (and lousy prognosis) not all situations are the same. I’m tolerating the chemo well, so far, and it was my decision to try and reduce the tumors.
    I’ll be getting a new CT scan Tuesday and we’ll see how that plan is turning out. Wish me luck!
    Patti

  4. Metastatic liver cancer » Colon Cancer Staging on September 28th, 2007 4:30 pm

    [...] is a follow up on my previous Colon Cancer Staging post. I had some more questions about it related to dad’s colon cancer, but thanks to the Dad [...]

     
  5. Metastatic liver cancer » Stage 4 colon cancer on September 27th, 2007 5:12 pm

    [...] Read more about stage 4 colon cancer in colon cancer staging. [...]

     

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