Can a doctor tell how fast the cancer will grow?
In addition to staging, if cancer is found in a prostate biopsy specimen it will be graded to estimate how fast it is likely to grow and spread. Grading is done by the pathologist examining the prostate biopsy tissue sample. Prostate cancers are graded according to how closely they look like normal prostate tissue when viewed under a microscope. The Gleason system is used most often for grading. Under this system a lower number like 2-4 means a slower growing tumor. A higher number such as 8-10 means the cancer cells are likely to grow more quickly. Scores of 5-6 are considered in between.
