What stages does prostate cancer go through?

The development of solid tumors goes through two stages: local growth and metastasis. First, a tumor forms in an organ, and then the tumor gradually grows and breaks through the organ. There are two ways to break through an organ. One is to grow out of the organ to the surrounding area and invade adjacent organs, such as kidney cancer growing into the intestines around the kidneys; in another case, the tumor will directly reach distant organs along the lymphatic vessels and blood vessels in the organ. For example, kidney cancer can metastasize to the abdominal lymph nodes along the lymphatic vessels, or to the lungs, liver and other organs through blood vessels.

Prostate cancer is a solid tumor, so it also goes through two stages: local growth and metastasis. After the tumor forms in the prostate, it grows locally and gradually develops and metastasizes to organs such as lymph nodes, bones, lungs and liver.

However, the growth of prostate cancer is regulated by factors such as androgens. The above two stages are further divided into two different stages according to the different responses of the tumor to androgens, namely the hormone-sensitive stage and the castration-resistant stage, which add up to four stages in total. In the early stages of the disease, it is mostly the hormone-sensitive stage. Therefore, most patients can be treated with androgen deprivation methods, which is the so-called "castration" treatment, regardless of whether they have metastases at the time of diagnosis, because they are sensitive to androgens. After a period of treatment, castration treatment becomes resistant, which is "castration resistance", and the treatment strategy needs to be adjusted at this time.