According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cancer is the second most cause of high mortality rates globally. Individuals and different persons have cancer all through written history. The WHO data in 2018 estimated that approximately 9.8 million people die across the globe and that one-six of the deaths are due to cancer (WHO, 2018). Notably, about 70 percent of the world’s cancer deaths happen in low-income and middle-income countries, mainly due to a lack of proper nursing interventions and medical technologies that would aid in cancer management. In most cases, once one has been diagnosed with cancer, the standard treatment is the preferable treatment option currently accessible depending on the stage of cancer. However, standard treatment cannot cure cancer. However, it is important to understand the disease and make the right diagnosis to enable healthcare professionals to administer the best treatment option.

“Describe the diagnosis and staging of Cancer”

According to the National Health Institute (2020), there are various guidelines for diagnosing and screening cancer using a series of procedures. The diagnosis and staging of cancer depict where the cancer is located, where it has spread to, and whether it influences other body parts or organs. For the staging, specialists often use tests to decide the cancer stage (Gershenwald et al., 2017). The staging of cancer may not be completed until most of the tests are done. 

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Diagnosis

The cancer diagnosis starts with assessing a patient’s history of cancer and the awareness concerning the management and treatment process. When diagnosing cancer, oncologists and pathologists evaluate a patient’s condition and classify the type of cancer and the location of infection. However, during the diagnosis phase, the classification of the types of cancer like lymphatic cancer can prove problematic, thereby requiring the most complex diagnostic approach. The most important diagnostic techniques include lab tests, imaging tests, and biopsy. When conducting a lab test, the oncologist determines the levels of specific substances in the body that may suggest the presence or development of cancer. Typically, lab tests entail the screening of blood to determine if tumors exist in the patient’s blood. In this case, the best diagnostic approach used for this process is tumor markers procedure. During the blood test, the biochemical indicators that may suggest cancer include low levels or high levels of antigens, enzymes, hormones, and cytoplasmic proteins. 

Moreover, the oncologist can also use imaging to detect the presence of cancer in the body. Imaging includes CT scans and MRI scans which allow the oncologist to identify internal body organs affected by cancer. Other scanning techniques incorporate X-ray, Positron Emission Tomography (PET), and Ultrasound. For the biopsy test, the physician takes a sample tissue from the patient’s body and proceeds with lab tests. The biopsy procedure entails analyzing tissue cells under a microscope.

Staging 

Staging refers to the process of determining how much cancer is in an individual’s body and the site of infection. In simple terms, it is how the physician determines the stage of an individual’s cancer (Gershenwald et al., 2017). Clinical staging of cancer is important because it determines the extent of cancer based on the outcomes of physical exams, imaging tests, endoscopy examinations, and any other biopsies done before treatment. Knowing the cancer disease stage allows oncologists to determine and develop the treatment plan and appropriately estimate the prognosis of cancer. Currently, the best modality used for staging cancer is the “tumor (T), nodes (N), and metastases (M) (TNM). Cancer is staged depending on various factors, including determining the primary tumor with respect to the size and site of the tumor (Gershenwald et al., 2017).

Additionally, it is important to determine whether the tumor has spread to other nearby body organs or not. The next stage is evaluating if the tumor has spread to lymph nodes or other body parts. The last stage or stage 4 cancer is metastasis and accounts for higher fatalities from cancer tumors. The four stages are as follows:

Stage 0: The cancers at this stage are still situated in the sites where they began and have not yet spread to close-by tissues. If cancer is identified at this stage, it is highly curable, typically by removing the whole tumor with surgery (Dienstmann et al.,