How can we diagnose stomach cancer?

The diagnosis of the stomach or gastric cancer is little difficult its early stages because the symptoms are almost invisible. Therefore, the disease is often not diagnosed until it’s more advanced.

The diagnosis process of stomach cancer first includes physical test by your doctor to check if there are any abnormalities. This test may consist of some blood tests to check for the presence of H. pylori bacteria.

Then some other tests will be done if your doctor believes that you are showing some signs of stomach cancer. Diagnostic tests are generally done to check for tumors and other abnormalities in the stomach and esophagus. The includes

● An Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy

● Biopsy

● Imaging tests such as the CT SCAN OR MRI

Staging of stomach cancer

● Adaptation of any cancer is a way to describe the condition of cancer which a person is having. The stage or the situation can be controllable, and many times can be manageable. The staging helps in deciding the treatment, which is to be taken to cure or to control cancer.

● The adaptation can be different according to cancer. For stomach, gastric cancers doctor generally uses either the TNM system or the number staging system.

TNM staging

TNM stands for Tumor, Node and metastasis respectively. TNM adaptation is one of the most common method or approach which is used by the doctors to tell about the condition of a stomach cancer

Tumor

Tumor tells the size of the tumor present in the abdomen. Further to more in TNM staging is divided into four different parts.

T1: which tells that tumor has just started growing into the walls of the stomach. In this stage, tumors can grow within the inner layers of the stomach (the mucosa). They have already grown through the mucosa and into a sheet of supportive tissue called the submucosa.
T2: this stage tells that the tumor has grown into the muscular layer of the stomach too.
T3: T3 stage tells that the tumor has grown into the outer lining of the stomach
T4: In this stage, the tumor has developed through the outer lining of the stomach that is either it has broken through the outer lining of the stomach wall or tumor has grown through the stomach wall and probably into other organs or body structures like the liver, food pipe (esophagus) or abdominal wall

Node

Node describes whether the stomach cancer reaches to lymphatic nodes or not. Lymphatic nodes have created a network of several glands throughout the body. Node is further divided into different parts N0, N1, N2 and N3.

N0: the stage when none of the lymphatic nodes has cancerous cells.

N1: cancerous cells in 1 or 2 lymphatic nodes

N2: cancerous cells in 3 to 6 nearby lymph nodes.

N3: divides into N3a and N3b in which cancer cells spread in 7 to 15 nearby lymph nodes and cancer cells spread in 16 or more nearby lymph nodes respectively.

Metastasis

This stage tells whether cancer cells have spread to different parts of the body or not. This stage is further subdivided into two categories. They are –

M0 which mean that cancer has not spread to other organs up till now
M1 tells cancer has spread to different parts of the body as well.

Another staging system to describe the condition of stomach cancer is the five stages which are from zero stage to stage four.

Stage 0: Stage 0 also called high-grade stage or dysplasia, which tells that there are severely abnormal cells present in the inner lining of the stomach.
Stage 2: This stage 2 tells how big stomach cancer has is formed and to which parts of the body. Stage 2 also helps the doctor to find out the treatment needed.
Stage 3: Stage 3 is all about the treatment, which is to be taken. In this stage, cancer cells have grown into the muscle layer of the stomach or either into seven or more nearby lymph nodes.
Stage 4: Stage 4 is an advanced stage in which the disease went out of control and spreads all over the body.

What happens if we will leave our stomach cancer without treated?

If stomach cancer or any cancer will be left without treated can cause severe situations to your health and can also be the reason of death. The stomach is one of the main body organs, which helps to run the whole body one needs to fight with his or her stomach cancer to live longer and healthier. If you have any signs or symptoms related to stomach cancer, immediately concerned with your nearest doctor as soon as possible, generally, in the case of stomach cancer, we cannot detect early symptoms in the early stages of stomach cancer. Therefore, don’t leave your stomach cancer and treated before it’s too late and leads to fatal severe.

Diagnosis of stomach cancer

Stomach cancer can be diagnosed by performing specific tests and examination by the doctor. If you’re feeling any symptoms or signs related to stomach cancer, then immediately concerned with your doctor as soon as possible. The different tests and examination are like

● Blood test: to check the signs and symptoms in your body

● Upper endoscopy: in under endoscopy doctor will use a small camera attached in flexible thin tube drawn via mouth, throat and stomach.

● Upper GI series test: In this test first, you must drink a fluid known as barium. The liquid settles around the abdomen, and the x-ray will be more clear to check for stomach tumor.

● CT SCAN: a CT scan is an imaging test performed to check stomach cancer. In this powerful x-ray are drawn into the stomach to check whether the body has a stomach cancer or not.

● Biopsy: in this test to check stomach cancer small amount of tissue from your stomach is removed. The same membrane is put under a microscope to check the condition of whether it is fabric has cancerous cells or not.

Diagnosis of Stomach Cancer