What are breast cancer stages and how is staging determined?

Gordon F. Schwartz, MD, MBA, FACS

Academic Title: Professor

Director, Jefferson Breast Care Center

Board Certifications:
Surgery

Breast cancer staging now is changing because the old way of staging has been zero through four with zero meaning a non-invasive cancer and I, II, III and IV being successively more aggressive cancers. Staging began in the 1940s before the current era of molecular biology. It uses size, lymph node status, and the appearance of the breast.

But this form staging is slowly becoming a little bit archaic now that we are using molecular biology to differentiate tumors from one another. So today you can have a stage II or stage III cancer which is indolent because of it molecular character where as you can have a very aggressive stage I cancer.

Staging is well established and it is now being reinvented as we are using molecular studies and other things to add to clinical staging.