An important part of diagnosing cancer is staging. Staging is the process of finding out how much cancer there is and where it is located. This information is used to plan cancer treatment and estimate a prognosis.
Staging is a way to make sure you get the right treatment. For most cancers, the stage is based on three main factors:
- Size of the tumor and whether or not it has grown into nearby areas
- If the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes
- If the cancer has spread to distant areas of the body
Basal cell carcinoma rarely spreads to other parts of the body.