Rectal Cancer Staging - How Is The Stage Being Determined?

Here’s what you should know about rectal cancer staging and other details of this condition.

RECTAL CANCER STAGING – Cancer staging is a process where the cancer’s location is being determined and if it has spread or affected other parts of the body.

Curable and somehow preventable is the rectal cancer. This cancer develops and begins in rectum – a part of the lower gastrointestinal tract. This is continuation of the sigmoid colon and is connected to the anus.

People over 50 years old are likely to develop this but there’s also a possibility that adults and teens may get this.

Below are the stated common symptoms:

changes in bowel habits like constipation or diarrhea
changes in the shape of your stool (it becomes narrow-shaped)
there is blood in your stool
pelvic or lower abdominal pain
unexplained weight loss
exhaustion or you feel tired all the time

And this type of cancer, just like the others, have staging. The process of staging is done in order for doctors to figure out if the cancer cells have spread, how far it has spread, and whether if it has affected other organs.

Each stages describes how much cancer a person’s body already have.

In a post from Cleveland Clinic, below are the description of each stages:

Stage 0	The cancer cells are at the surface of the rectal lining.
Stage 1	The tumor grew below the lining and possibly into the rectal wall.
Stage 2	The tumor is in the rectal wall and can possibly extend to the tissues of the rectum.
Stage 3	The lymph nodes gets invaded by the tumor.
Stage 4	The tumor became widespread reaching beyond distant lymph nodes or organs.

According to NIH, the following are risk factors of this disease: