The stage of a cancer describes the size of the tumour, whether or not it has spread, and if it has, to where. This helps to guide treatment and can help plan long-term follow-up care. When staging is based on clinical assessment alone, it is referred to as the clinical stage. Microscopic examination of the affected tissue determines the pathologic stage. A staging system is a standardised way in which the cancer care team describes the extent of the cancer.
Your doctor will determine the stage of your kidney cancer based on:
- The size of the tumour (T-stage)
- Spread of the cancer to the nearby lymph nodes (N-stage).
- Spread of the cancer to other organs (M-stage) e.g. metastasis to liver, lung or bone.
The four main stages of kidney cancer are based on this TNM staging system, which is one of the methods for staging kidney cancer.
