Stage of Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor

Executive Summary

The stage of gastrointestinal stromal tumor help determine the tumor’s location and metastasis. The staging system of eyelid cancer uses diagnostic tests. A TNM staging system does not identify the different stage of gastrointestinal stromal tumor. Instead, doctors see different factors to determine a patient’s prognosis and the specific risk of how aggressive an individual tumor will be. GIST tumors that have been removed and have not spread to other areas of the body are determined for the risk of coming back by analyzing factors such as the size of the tumor, the location where the tumor started, mitotic count, which shows the number of dividing cells, and whether the tumor ruptured and spilt into the abdomen (perforated). A GIST spread to distant body areas is metastatic or stage IV (four).

Stages of Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor

Staging is the procedure of determining where the tumor is located, whether it has spread or not, and how it grows. While assessing the cancer stage, many factors are taken into account.

Doctors use diagnostic tests to discover cancer’s stage, so staging may not be complete without conducting all the tests.  

For other GI tumors, the most common staging tool used is the TNM system. TNM is an abbreviation for tumor (T), node (N), and Metastasis (M). However, the TNM system does not help to stage GIST. Instead, doctors see different factors to determine a patient’s prognosis and the specific risk of how aggressive an individual tumor will be ^​1​. Especially, doctors want to figure out how quickly the Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor may grow and the chance the tumor will come back or recur after surgery.

For GIST tumors that have metastasized to other areas of the body, doctors commonly use the factors listed below to determine the risk of it coming back:

• The size of the tumour
• The location where the tumour started
• The mitotic count, which shows the number of dividing cells
• Whether the tumor ruptured and spilled into the abdomen (perforated)

A GIST spread to distant body areas is metastatic or stage IV (four) cancer.

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