Prostate Cancer Staging
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Staging for Prostate Cancer
If you receive a diagnosis of prostate cancer, your doctor will assign you a Gleason score based on the severity of the tumor. There are two parts in determining a Gleason score. First, your doctor will find a common pattern of cells within the tumor and rate them in terms of abnormality with 1 being similar to normal cells and 2 being highly differentiated. Then, your doctor will replicate the first step using the second most common cell pattern.
The first and second scores are added to provide an overall Gleason score. Scores range from 2 to 10, where higher-grade tumors are most likely to spread quickly.
Other times, your doctor may use a different grading system. Similar to the Gleason score, a grade classifies how aggressive a tumor is, and how likely it is to grow and spread to surrounding tissue and other locations within the body. Grade levels range between 1 and 4 with G1 (grade 1) denoting cancers that look similar to normal cells and G4 (grade 4) denoting cancer cells that are highly abnormal in appearance.
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