Prognosis

A prognosis for metastatic lymph nodes is a prediction of the outcome of one’s disease. How likely is survival? Will the cancer come back? These are the big questions on most people’s minds after receiving a diagnosis of cancer. In general, there are several characteristics of the tumor that can inform a patient about their chances of being cured.

Factors That Affect Prognosis

Stage

This is the most important factor that affects a patient’s chance of being cured.

Site

The location and extent of the primary tumor related to surrounding structures will affect a patient’s prognosis.

Type and Grade

Both the type and grade of the tumor determine the amount of treatment necessary and the ultimate prognosis.

Spread to Lymph Nodes

This helps determine stage, but even without other factors, spread to lymph nodes in the neck decreases the chance of cure, especially if there is evidence of growth of cancer outside of the lymph node.

Other relevant factors:

  • Number of lymph nodes involved
  • Size of lymph nodes involved
  • Location of the lymph nodes
  • Spread of cancer outside of the lymph node capsule (ENE)
Tumor Margins

The ability to completely remove the tumor with a margin of healthy tissue around it is a very important factor in a patient’s prognosis.

While each of these factors contributes to one’s outcome, patients should have a discussion with their doctor to determine their overall prognosis. Giving an exact probability of survival is challenging because cancer research often looks at multiple types of cancer and may include a large range of patients who underwent a variety of treatments. 

Moreover, metastatic lymph nodes can arise from a wide range of different primary cancers of various different stages; therefore it is not possible to provide valuable prognostic estimates for this group of patients as a whole.

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