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Prostate cancer staging is crucial in determining the extent of the tumor in order to understand if prostate cancer is imminent. Moreover, staging for prostate cancer provides doctors with better tools to choose the right treatment especially when prostate cancer shows no symptoms in its early stages.

Prostate cancer has affected 3 million Americans with 26,000 deaths each year. For this year alone, there have been 180,000 new cases, which set prostate cancer as a serious threat to men's health.

Medical practitioners are encouraging men over 40 years old to undergo prostate cancer staging, which employs several stages of understanding the extent of the condition. Staging is crucial for three reasons, namely, to help doctors find the best treatment, to have information on the percentage of recovery, and to give patients access to the right clinical trials especially for experimental procedures and drugs.

The doctors looked into five important aspects of the condition, which are the extent of the tumor, the condition of the lymph nodes if cancer has reached them, where cancer metastasized, result of the Prostate-specific Antigen (PSA) test, and the Gleason score, which is a test based on the prostate biopsy or surgery as stated in the official website of the American Cancer Society.

There are two methods used in prostate cancer staging, which are the clinical and pathological methods as reported in Pulse Headlines. The former looks into the findings of the physical evaluation coupled with the laboratory tests and biopsy results. The latter depends on the result of the clinical method and also additional results from surgery.

The pathological method is the most accurate in helping doctors locate the tumor and also identify the extent of cancer. A tumor may be present when there are urinating issues like inability to urinate, having a weak stream, or experiencing a burning sensation.

However, not all prostate cancer can be easily detected. In fact, this kind of cancer show no symptoms in its early stages, making it a deadly but silent killer.This is why doctors stress prostate cancer staging to be a standard test when it comes to evaluating men especially those with urinating problems.