Gastric Cancer Life Expectancy
Gastric cancer is comparatively rare amongst other cancers. Its symptoms are not noticeable at a great extent at the onset and hence most of the time it remains undiagnosed until the advanced stage. This cancer gets prominent in the metastatic stage and at this stage complete cure from gastric cancer is just next to impossible. Early diagnosis and treatment is the ideal option to increase gastric cancer life expectancy of patient. The more advanced your cancer is, the less is the survival rate. The survival rate and life expectancy are such odds that need to be checked with a grain of salt, hence there are number of gastric cancer stages and types.
Metastatic stage is the most serious stage in all cancers, because at this stage your cancer is spread at distant organs through your lymphatic system. Diagnosis of any type of cancer is based on the location of the cancer or the origin of the cancer. Once your cancer reaches at the advanced stage, harsh treatments options are used to reduce its impact. If the cancer gets spread at the distant organs, the patient often undergoes the same callous treatments as the other cancer patients. Often aggressive chemotherapy treatments or some other new techniques can be used to destroy all the cancer cells.
Gastric cancer treatment options by considering the stage:
Lot of new stomach cancer therapies and treatments are invented often, you just need to know the available information on your cancer to give yourself a chance of complete recovery and survival. Indications like unintentional weight loss, feeling of bloating, and blood in the stool or chronic pain in the stomach prompts one to the doctor. Although these symptoms resemble some other abnormal condition, still they need to be checked with the doctor. Early diagnosis contributes complete cure and extended survival rate.
If your stomach cancer is at the onset, i.e. it has not spread in the adjoining lymph nodes or other nearby organs (Stage 1 or 2) your doctor may prefer to perform surgery. It may sound little intuitive, but if your stomach is removed during surgery, still you can eat food. Removing stomach through surgery may be required if your cancer damaged your stomach at a major level. Every type and stage of cancer varies and hence you need an experienced professional to deal with your gastric cancer. After diagnosing the medical state, your doctor will decide which treatment will best suit on you.
Your treatments odds depend on your media of information. It is always recommended to get a second opinion. It is so because the amount of knowledge varies for different doctors. This is literally an issue of life and death and hence needs to be managed by a professional. Certainly, gastric cancer life expectancy depends on the stage of the cancer and type of the treatments used.
Stomach cancer life expectancy by considering the stage of the cancer
Stomach cancer is divided into four stages, all have different prognosis. This data is an estimation calculated by the American Cancer Society. It is evaluated by considering the five year survival rate as well as the fact that any other cause may also develop a risk of mortality within five years in a cancer patient.
Stage 0: At this stage, the abnormal cells can be noticed in the lining of the stomach. Five year survival at this stage is around 89 percent.
Stage 1: If the tumor is developed only in the stomach, the survival rate will be 78 percent, but if it is found to develop in the nearby lymph nodes, the survival rate may fall at 58 percent.
Stage 2: At this stage, the cancerous tumors get spread into the lymph nodes as well as the deep tissues of your stomach. The five year survival rate at this stage reduces to 34 percent.
Stage 3: At stage 3a, the cancer cells start developing into the lymph nodes and deep parts of the stomach and the gastric cancer life expectancy is 20 percent. At stage 3b, the tumor spreads into the outer layer of the stomach and some more lymph nodes.
Stage 3b cancer has 8 percent of survival rate.
Stage 4: This the advanced stage of cancer, since at this stage the cancer cells spreads into a large number of lymph nodes and distant organs as well. The five years survival rate for this stage is about 7 percent.
Over all estimations and studies say that stage and treatment options decide the gastric cancer life expectancy for a patient.