Liver Cancer Stages

Cancer staging is important from the aspect of treatment and prognosis of any type of cancer. Staging method is applicable to all the cancer types, except for leukemia. Staging system is a way of standardizing the cancer on the basis of how much it has spread in the particular organ or the body. The exact idea of the patient's cancer and the exact spread is determined by the stages of cancer and also the appropriate treatment is prescribed according to the stage of cancer. There are various sub-types in the staging system and different doctors use different staging systems for prognosis and treatment. Similarly, liver cancer is also staged accordingly. Let us discuss the liver cancer stages in detail.

Stages of Liver Cancer

The TNM system describes the stages of the liver cancer and was designed by the American Joint committee on Cancer (AJCC). T, N, and M are the three parts of information required in determining the severity of a liver cancer. Now, you must be wondering, why T, N and M! The letter T stands for tumor, N stands for nodes (lymph nodes) and the M stands for malignancy. Let us take a look at what T, N and M exactly mean.

• 'T' accounts for the number of primary tumor or tumors and the size of the tumor is mentioned in centimeters (cm). In addition, 'T' accounts for the information about tumors in any other organs.
• 'N' accounts for the spread of cancer to the lymph nodes nearby.
• Lastly, 'M' accounts for the metastasizing of the cancer. It tells whether the liver cancer is metastasized (spread throughout the body).

These are the three key points which are necessary while determining the liver cancer stages. The T, N and M are described more precisely with the help of numbers that are suffixed to them. The numbers 0 to 4 are suffixed to indicate the severity of the cancer. There is another suffix called 'X', which indicates, that the tumor cannot be assessed. Let us discuss now 'what are the stages of liver cancer' in the following section.

Stage 1
In stage 1, there is a single tumor in the blood vessels which can be of any type. The tumor is localized and resectable at this stage. The term resectable is used for the tumors, which can be surgically removed. In stage 1, the tumor is approximately 2 cm in size and only one tumor is present in the liver.

Stage 2
In the second stage of the liver cancer, there are two possibilities. The first possibility is that there are several tumors which are 2 cm in size or there is one big tumor in the liver. At this liver cancer stage, the cancer has still not spread to the lymph nodes. At this stage the cancer is resectable and localized.

Stage 3
The third stage in cancer is also called advanced stage. This stage is one of the last stages of liver cancer. The third stage of the cancer is sub-divided into two stages viz., stage IIIA and stage IIIB. In stage IIIA, the cancer is not spread to the lymph nodes. This stage is very similar to the second stage of the liver cancer. The cancer tumor is localized and the size of the tumor is around 2 cm. The liver cancer is not spread to the lymph nodes and there are many tumors present at this stage. This is however one situation out of two situations. The other situation is, that there is only one tumor larger than 2 cm in size. In the stage IIIB, the size of the tumor can be large or small, but the lymph nodes are affected. At this stage, the blood vessels may or may not be affected due to the cancer. The liver cancer at stage IIIB, the cancer is still confined to the liver and hasn't spread to the other adjacent organs.

Stage 4
There are two sub stages of the fourth stage, viz., stage IVA and IVB. In the stage IVA, the cancer is present in the liver lobes and may have spread to gallbladder, lymph nodes and other adjacent organs. In the stage IVB, the cancer is spread to organs far away from the liver. Stage IVA and stage IVB are the last stages of liver cancer.

These were the liver cancer stages. Depending upon the stage, the treatment of the liver cancer is decided by the doctors. Diagnosis of the liver cancer at the initial stages, increases the chances of survival, whereas this can be hardly said for a person on the stage 3 or stage 4. Survival rates lower with the increase in the number of the stage.