How do the doctors diagnose cancer and what are the tests included in it initially?

Cancer Diagnosis

What doctors do is, if any patient comes with a particular symptom, first, they go through the history tracking i.e. what are the symptoms of the patient, what are the problems of the patient.

In detail, step-by-step, doctors write down history. Then, they do a clinical examination to check whether there is any problem with the oral cavity, or in the breast, or in the abdomen.

Doctors clinically examine the patient in detail. So this is as far as the patient is concerned. Then, once doctors have some suspicion of cancer, doctors do some tests.

Initial Tests

First test most of the time will be a normal Sonography, X-ray, or some type of scan, or Mammography for the breast. So first, doctors will have some vague idea whether there is a lump or tumor: yes or not.

Confirmation Tests

Then the doctor confirm it with FNAC (Fine Needle Aspiration Cytology) or tru-cut biopsy, where they put one needle, and take some tissue sample from the lump, and send it to the pathology laboratory.

The pathologist will tell us, looking into the microscope and by putting some chemical reagents or stains whether these look like a cancerous cell or non-cancerous cell. Once the doctor diagnoses this as cancer and then goes for sub-types of cancer or sub-classification of cancer.

Cancer Sub-types

Then doctors run a battery of tests called immunohistochemistry (IHC), or molecularhistobiology, or molecular analysis. These are different tests that doc do, and they confirm the type of cancer also, then comes the very important: stage of cancer. The stage of cancer, doctors sometimes do a CT scan, sometimes an MRI, sometimes a PET scan: (Positron Emission Tomography scan).

This is a very important scan as far as a cancer treatment is concerned because, one scan, it gives us an idea about the whole cancer process.

The tumor is only at the localized place or it has gone from one organ to another organ, or it has spread to multiple other organs. That one scan called a positron emission tomography scan, where doctors inject FDG i.e. fluorodeoxyglucose, one molecule, and there is a special camera, special software. The chemical goes into the body and wherever there is a high metabolism; because cancer cells are high metabolically, they are very active, and the metabolism is very high wherever the cancer cell is.

So in a PET scan, the doctors will come to know whether there is only one tumor, or there are multiple tumors, or it has spread to the other organs. So exactly doctors can assess the extent of the disease with the whole-body PET scan. Then, sometimes doctors do endoscopy for upper GI (gastrointestinal) tumors, sometimes colonoscopy for colorectal cancer, and there are few other different tests which are as per the requirements for that particular cancer, doctors do those tests.

Then doctors diagnose that this the particular patient has this particular cancer, and this is the stage of cancer, because unless and until doctors define the problem, doctors cannot treat the problem.

Conclusions

So now doctors have come to the conclusion that this patient has this cancer, this stage, and then doctors will plan the next phase of treatment for the particular patient.

DISCLAIMER: This blog is for information only and should not be used for the diagnosis or any disease treatment of medical conditions. Sunil Kumar the pharmacist at the research need platform has done all literature surveys and reasonable precautions in compiling the information but makes no warranty or guaranty for its accuracy. Always consult the registered medical physician or other healthcare professional for diagnosis and treatment of medical conditions.

END OF THE DOCUMENT

Owner

Hi. I’m Writer of Researchsop.com. ’ ’ Please share these SOPs to all concern pharma people for their development. I like to fullfill the need of curious people. These things inspire me to make things looks better.