Staging is used to describe how much the disease has progressed and where the tumor has spread. Physicians use staging to guide their selection of a treatment regimen and to better understand a patient’s risk of dying from the disease. Ovarian cancer is usually staged during surgery.
There are 4 main stages of ovarian cancer. Each of these can be further broken down into several sub-stages.
- Stage I - Growth of tumor is limited to one or both ovaries.
- Stage II – In addition to being in one or both ovaries, the tumor has spread to other areas of the pelvis (such as the Fallopian tubes, uterus, bladder or colon).
- Stage III – Tumor is in one or both ovaries and has spread into the abdomen. It may have also spread into the lymph nodes.
- Stage IV – Tumor has spread to organs outside the abdominal cavity, such as the liver or lungs.
