Breast cancer staging

Once your health care team knows you have breast cancer, they will do more tests to stage it. Staging is a tool the team uses to find out how advanced the cancer is. The stage of the cancer depends on the size and location of a tumor, whether it has spread, and how far the cancer has spread.

Your health care team uses staging to help:

  • Decide the best treatment
  • Know what kind of follow-up will be needed
  • Determine your chance of recovery (prognosis)
  • Find clinical trials you may be able to join
Mammary gland

The anatomy of the breast includes the lactiferous, or milk ducts, and the mammary lobules.

Mammogram

A mammogram is an x-ray picture of the breasts. It is used to find tumors and to help tell the difference between noncancerous (benign) and cancerous (malignant) disease. One breast at a time is rested on a flat surface that contains the x-ray plate. A device called a compressor is pressed firmly against the breast to help flatten out the breast tissue. Each breast is compressed horizontally, then obliquely and an x-ray is taken of each position.

Two Types of Staging

How Stages are Determined

What the Stages Mean

How Staging Guides Treatment

Recurrent Cancer