Tumors

What does staging mean?

Staging is a way of assessing specific characteristics about a sarcoma and correlating it with a prognosis. It is a way of estimating a prognosis for patients. There are separate staging systems for bone and soft tissue sarcomas. There are also a few different types of staging systems. In general, staging systems assess tumor size, grade, superficial or deep location, intracompartmental or extracompartmental involvement, and whether it has spread to any other area of the body. Most high grade sarcomas of bone or soft tissue present as stage 2 tumors. Stage 4 tumors refer to those tumors of any size that have spread to OR metastasized to other body parts at the time the tumor is discovered. Stage 1 tumors have the best prognosis and stage 4 tumors have the worst prognosis.