Lung Cancer Stages My Father-in-law was recently diagnosed with
Stage IV Lung cancer. Could you tell me what that means?
Mitchell Machtay, MD, Radiation Oncologist, responds: The
"stage" of a cancer indicates how advanced someone's cancer is.
Early stage means that the cancer is relatively small and well
confined, while very advanced stage cancer generally means that
it has spread throughout the body. Cancer experts have developed
"staging systems" for most of the major types of cancer. These
classification systems can be very complex and are perhaps
overemphasized, but they provide physicians with a form of
"medical shorthand" to describe the anatomy and extent of a
patient's cancer. Stage is one factor that can be used to
estimate prognosis, and it often determines treatment. In lung
cancer, the staging system consists of 4 major categories or
stage groupings (Stages I through IV) The 4 major Stage
categories of lung cancer are as follows: Prognosis is best for
Stage I. Stage II is also considered to be rel