Stages of childhood bone cancer
Staging describes or classifies a cancer based on how much cancer there is in the body and where it is when first diagnosed. This is often called the extent of cancer. The healthcare team uses information from tests to find out the size of the tumour, which parts of the organ have cancer, whether the cancer has spread from where it first started and where the cancer has spread to. Doctors use the stage to plan treatment and estimate the outcome (your childʼs prognosis).
The most common staging system for childhood bone cancer is the TNM system. It is used for both adult and childhood bone cancer. Find out more about the stages of bone cancer.
When describing childhood bone cancer, doctors may use the words localized and metastatic.
Localized means that the cancer is only in the bone that it started in and in nearby soft tissues. It has not spread to other parts of the body.
Metastatic means that the cancer has spread to other parts of the body, farther away from the bone where the cancer started. The most common place for bone cancer to spread to is the lungs.
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