Jaw cancer

If you have jaw cancer, one of the next steps is to find out how much cancer is present and whether it has spread. This is called staging. The result is the cancer's stage. Your healthcare team uses your cancer's stage to help create your treatment plan.

The staging system depends on the type of cancer. Generally, to find the stage of cancer, a healthcare team considers:

• The cancer's location.
• The size of the cancer.
• How fast the cancer is growing.
• How deeply the cancer has grown into nearby tissue.
• Whether there is more than one area of tumor in the same bone.
• Whether the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes or to other parts of the body.

Staging tests

A physical exam, biopsy and imaging tests provide information used to determine the cancer's stage. Imaging can show the tumor and nearby lymph nodes. It also can show whether the cancer may have spread to other areas of the head and neck or other parts of the body.

Staging varies depending on tumor type and location. The stages of some jaw cancers range from 1 to 4. In general, a higher stage means the cancer is more advanced. It may be larger, have grown more deeply into nearby tissue, or have spread to lymph nodes or other parts of the body.

Many cancers that affect the jaw use a staging system called TNM:

• T stands for tumor. It describes the size of the main tumor and how far it has grown into nearby tissue.
• N stands for lymph nodes. It describes whether cancer has spread to lymph nodes in the neck.
• M stands for metastasis. Metastasis means cancer has spread to a distant part of the body.

Some jaw cancers, including jaw sarcomas, also are given a grade.

• G stands for grade. Grade describes how the cancer cells look under a microscope and gives clues about how quickly the cancer may grow.