Reveal Cervical Cancer Stages

Finding out about cervical cancer stages will bring sufficient knowledge to deal better with cervical cancer. To reveal the stages, doctor usually will hold some test. Stage is important to reveal since it makes doctor easily to predict the spreading of cancer cell. Besides that, knowing the stages will be helpful to decide the proper treatment to apply. Generally, the stages itself will be divided from 1 to 4.

Before talking about stages, you have to understand the term called carcinoma in situ. This term is used to explain condition where the cervix cell in surface layer has cancerous changes.  It does not mean automatically create cancer but will develop into cancer after several years. That is why it is better to have proper treatment earlier when carcinoma in situ happens. You can have some cervical screening test to find whether carcinoma in situ is happen or not. The detail of cervical cancer stages can be finding below:

Stage 1

Stage 1 is titled for the condition where the cancer is placed in the neck of the womb. First stage itself divided into two named as stage 1A and 1B. Nowadays, stage 1A and1B itself divided again into 2 as 1A1, 1A2 and 1B1 and 1B2. In 1A, cervical cancer growth is small enough and only can be seen through microscope. Stage 1A1 is when the cancer has less than 3 mm growth in the cervix tissue and the wide is less than 7mm.

When you reach stage 1A2 then your cancer must be already grown about 3 up to 5 mm in your cervical tissue but less than 7 mm in its wide. Stage 1B occurs when cancer gets larger even though still located in the cervical tissue and not spread. Where 1B1 reached, the cancer cell is about 4 cm while 1B2 can be larger than 4cm. Women that reached this stage can try to have surgery or even radiotherapy treatment. However, if you have 1B2 stage then you may suggest taking a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment.

Stage 2

When women reach stage 2, it means that cancer cell start to spread outside the womb neck into its surrounding tissue. However, it is not yet grown into the ligament or muscle that line the pelvis or lower part of the vagina.  This stage itself divided into two called 2A and 2B. 2A means the cancer cell spread down into the top of your vagina. 2A1 is used to describe when the cancer size is 4 cm or less than that.

2A2 is happen when the cancer cell is more than 4 cm. 2B stage is applied when the cancer cell spread into the tissue around the cervix area. When you reach 2A stage, treatment that commonly suggested is surgery or chemotherapy that combined with radiotherapy. If women reach 2B stage, chemoradiation is the available choice to improving women survival rates.

Stage 3

When the cancer cell is already spread away from the cervix area into its surrounding then it may grow down to the lower part of vagina, muscle and ligament that lining the pelvis area. Automatically it will block the tubes that drain the kidneys. Stage 3 itself divided into 2 phase named 3A and 3B. 3A is happen when cancer cell spread to the lower third of vagina but not in the pelvic wall. 3B is where the tumor grown through pelvic wall and blocking one or even both of the tubes that drain the kidneys. If you reached stage 3 then you may get radiotherapy and chemoradiation.

Stage 4

This stage is the most advanced one. During this stage, the cancer cell is spreading into the other body organs outside the cervix area and womb. Generally, it will be divided as stage 4A and 4B. 4A itself is when the cancer cell spread into organ around pelvis such as bladder or rectum. If the cell of cancer goes further like into lungs then you are in 4B stage. This last stage requires surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy or combination of them.