Ovarian Cancer Stages

Today everyone must be familiar with the word Cancer. What instantly comes in the mind after hearing this word is death. People correlate cancer with death and believe that it is an incurable disease. But this is not true. If a person is facing any form of cancer and it is detected in its early stage it is easily curable. Cancer is a type of disease in which cells inside the human body keep in growing and multiplying in an uncontrolled manner.

Normally cells grow, and over a period of time they divide themselves to produce new cells. These cells die when they grow old and newly formed cells replace them. The major cause of cancer is due to imbalance of these cells which keep on growing even when they should have died. Mass of tissue formed by this excess number of cells is generally referred to as tumor. These tumors are of two types:

Benign tumour - they are not cancer and are rarely life threatening.
Malignant tumour - they are cancer and are life threatening.

According to the gynaecologists ovarian cancer is malignant and can occur either in one or both the ovaries and is the most deadly cancer found in women than any other cancer. This cancer is formed in the tissues of the ovary. Ovaries are a pair of female reproductive gland in which eggs are formed. This type of cancer is very hard to detect in its initial stages as it does not show any early symptoms. Its symptoms are only visible, once it has reached at a high level.The stages of ovarian cancer depend upon the size of the tumour and to the extent to which it has spread inside the body.

The three main groups which are related to the cells where the ovarian cancer starts are:

Epithelial ovarian cancer, in this the cancer spreads in the epithelium which is the surface of the ovary and is the most common ovarian cancer and it majorly affects post menopausal women.
The other kind of epithelial tumor is a borderline tumor which spreads slowly than its regular counterpart and can be easily removed even at an advanced level.
Another very rare form of ovarian cancer is known as germ cell ovarian cancer that occurs in the cells that develop into eggs.

The four major stages of the ovarian cancer are classified as under:

Stage I

This is the initial stage of the disease. If a person comes to know about this disease at this stage, this deadly cancer can be treated with the surgery very easily. In this stage the cancerous cells have just started multiplying and have not yet affected the tissue around the ovaries or the ovary itself in any way. But if delayed it then spreads to one or both the ovaries and further the cancer spreads on to the ovarian tissue and inside the abdomen or the outer covering of the tumor gets ruptured, or cancerous cells are found in the fluid of the abdominal tissues. This stage is further classified as:

I A-Cancer is confined in one ovary.
I B-Cancer spreads in both the ovaries.
I C-Cancer spreads in both the ovaries along with the outer surface of the ovaries.

Stage II

In this stage the cancerous cells multiply and spread from the ovaries to the organs within the pelvis, such as the uterus, bladder, fallopian tubes, rectum or the colon.This stage is further divided into following stages:

II A- Cancer spread into the uterus and/or fallopian tubes.
II B- Cancer in both the ovaries and in other organs of the pelvic area such as the bladder, colon and rectum.
II C- Cancer is found in both the ovaries and has spread to the fallopian tubes, uterus, bladder, rectum or colon. It may also be found in fluid and tissue samples of the abdominal cavity.

Stage III

After stage II we come to stage III, wherein the cancer spreads from the ovaries to the abdominal area and is also found in the lymph nodes around the crotch region,groin area, womb and the upper part of the abdomen.The tumour grows larger in size, measuring upto 2 cm and above,and resulting into many abdominal problems.This stage is also further classified as under:

III A- Cancer spreads in both the ovaries and to a small part of the abdomen.
III B- Cancer spreads in the both ovaries and also in the peritoneum, which is the lining of the abdominal cavity.
III C- Cancer spreads in both the ovaries, peritoneum and/or has extended to the lymph nodes.

Stage IV

After stage III comes the most deadly ovarian cancer stage number IV. This is the advanced stage and is fatal for the patient. In this stage the other body parts also get affected especially the lungs, liver, brain, neck and the lymph nodes. At this stage the survival rate becomes too low for the patient, especially in the case of elderly women.