A stage is not one number. It is three answers locked together: how deep the tumor cut (T), how many nodes it reached (N), and whether it landed somewhere far away (M). Set each one and watch the stage build. Then look at the grid, where the same T lands in four different stages depending on its partners.
Through the bowel wall T is depth, not width
The layers run from the open channel at the top down to the outer coat. The red mass reaches as deep as the T you picked. Nodes sit in the fat on the right.
The same T, every partner T rows, N columns
Read across one row. The depth never changes, yet the stage climbs as the nodes add up. Your pick is the ringed square.
Stage ISet T, N and M below.
T — how deep it cut T1
N — nodes it reached N0
M — landed far away M0
Grade — how odd the cells look G2
Live readout
Stage group
I
Deepest layer reached
Submucosa
Nodes with cancer
0 of 12 pulled
How far it reached
Local
5 year survival
91 percent
Pick a T and watch the wall.
Stage groups follow the current staging table for colon and rectal cancer. Other cancers use their own tables, so the same T, N and M can group up another way. Survival figures are rounded US figures for three broad groups: local, regional and distant. They are not a figure for each stage group. Stage IIB and IIC have grown through the outer coat, so they count as regional by direct spread even with clean nodes. Each band covers a wide range, and a single stage inside a band can run well below the band figure. All of them describe large groups, not one person.