Two of the most important topics when dealing with cancer are the diagnosis and prognosis. How exactly are physicians able to diagnose cancer? A cancer diagnosis is often made by an expert that analyzes a patient’s cells or tissue samples to determine if there are cancerous cells or it is another non-cancerous disease. A biopsy, or sample, may be taken of a tumor to determine if it is cancerous, and blood tests can also be taken to test proteins, DNA and RNA. These testing procedures, or pathologies, are how physicians determine if a patient has cancer.
Hearing a physician deliver a prognosis is often times the most difficult of all the processes involved in a cancer diagnosis. A prognosis is a forecast of the course of the cancer, and includes the type and stage of a patient’s cancer, along with the outcome of this debilitating disease. Some cancers can be cured, while others unfortunately are fatal, and for those patients waiting to hear a prognosis it is a time when they fear the worst. It can be hard to understand a prognosis at times, but is necessary to assess the cancer and come up with a viable treatment plan.
Factors that can affect your prognosis include:
The type of cancer and placement on your body
The stage of the cancer – size of the cancer and if it has spread to other parts of the body
The cancer’s grade – how abnormal the cancer cells look under a microscope. Grade lets physicians estimate how quickly the cancer is likely to grow and spread
Specific traits of the cancer cells
Age and health
Your response to treatment
Conquer the Unknown
Understanding is the best defense when it comes to a cancer diagnosis. It can prepare you and your family members to help make decisions and know what to expect. A prognosis is important to many people because it gives them the power to decide how they will continue. It also gives patients the opportunity to ask their physicians about survival statistics associated with their specific type of cancer. Patients have the power to know as much or as little information as they want when discussing their prognosis with their physician.
Decisions include:
Best possible treatment for you
Participation in treatment
How to manage treatment side effects and improve your lifestyle
How to deal with financial and legal matters
Obtaining a second opinion
Know the Survival Rates
Some patients do find hearing the survival rates of their specific cancer uplifting. Cancer survival rates can tell patients the percentage of survivors for their specific type of cancer over a specified amount of time. Cancer statistics are often given using the overall five-year survival rate.
Survival rates include patients of all ages and in various stages of health who have been diagnosed with specific cancer types that have been diagnosed both early and late. Survival rates are often given one of two ways: disease-free survival rate and progression-free survival rate.