3 ms·

> It works (in “statistically significant and highly clinically meaningful” manner) against certain types of lung cancer when administered on early stage. What

• vharuck 3y ago
  Cancer staging is complex, as one would expect for a wide-ranging category of diseases that follow different courses and cause harm different ways. Stage depends on tumor size, distance of spread, what organs it spread to (lymph nodes are especially worrisome), and how much the tumor cells differ from normal tissue. There is a large manual used by oncologists to record this information, and another large manual for cancer registrars to summarize it. https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/staging.html https://www.cancer.org/cancer/diagnosis-staging/staging.html There are simplified categories of early/late stages, usually used in public health statistics. "Early stage" here is in situ (hasn't broken out of the tissue where it first appeared) or localized (hasn't left the primary site/organ). "Late stage" is regional (metastasized to adjacent organs) or distant (metastasized to non-adjacent organs, usually through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). >What is considered early stage? Pre symptoms? Not necessarily. This is generally true for things like kidney cancer, which is really deadly. People don't usually get checked until they have symptoms, which is usually after it's metastasized. But benign tumors can cause symptoms by physically pressing on organs. Benign brain tumors, which can kill, are an extreme example of this.