You can have Stage 4 cancer and not know it as some cancers even in stage 4 may not have any symptoms.
If symptoms of the stage 4 cancer are present then they can also differ depending on where the cancer has spread to in the body.
The signs that cancer has metastasized are pain and fractures if cancer has spread to the bones, headache, dizziness or seizures when the cancer has spread or metastasized to the brain and shortness of breath when the cancer has spread or metastasized to the lung.
When cancer has spread or metastasized to the liver there will often be jaundice or swelling in the belly.
Having tests done by a doctor is the only way to know for sure if and where the cancer has metastasized which can be imaging tests and biopsies.
The life expectancy with metastatic cancer ranges from 7 months to 2 years although some people have lived with metastatic cancer for up to 5 years with treatment.
Surgery cannot successfully cure a cancer that has metastasized if it has spread too far although it may be able to remove part of the cancer.
Instead if the cancer has metastasized doctors will most often instead rely on other treatments for cancer such as radiation, proton therapy, immunotherapy or chemotherapy to cure and treat the cancer.
Chemo can in rare cases cure metastatic cancer as long as the metastatic cancer has not spread too far in the body.
Once the cancer has spread too far and to other parts of the body it becomes much harder to cure.
Metastatic cancer is often incurable because it has advanced so far that it cannot be safely removed through surgery or is not responding well to chemo or radiation.
Most people with metastatic cancer are treated only with therapies meant to kill cancer cells anywhere they may be in the body, known as systemic treatment.
What makes tumors and cancers inoperable are when the cancers spread too far or when the tumors become too large to be safely removed through surgery or if the tumor is in an essential organ such as the liver or pancreas and removing the tumor or cancer would mean taking too much of the organ it has invaded along with the tumor.
Inoperable cancer can sometimes become operable if the cancer shrinks enough to be able to become treated or removed through surgery.
The kind of cancer that is inoperable are lymphoma cancers and leukemia cancers which are too widely disseminated at the time of diagnoses to be treated with surgery.
All treatments for these kinds of cancers are usually through chemotherapy, immune therapy or targeted agents but never through surgery.
When cancer is inoperable it means that the cancer cannot be treated through surgery.
Inoperable cancer simply just means that surgery is not a viable option for treatment of the cancer and does not mean the same as terminal cancer.
Doctors may not be able to cure the cancer when it's inoperable but they can provide treatment that slows its growth, eases symptoms, and allows the person to live longer.
The hardest type of cancer to cure and also the deadliest type of cancer is glioblastoma.
The deadliest cancer that cannot be cured is glioblastoma as well as pancreatic cancer, Mesothelioma and esophageal cancer.
The deadliest cancer is lung and bronchus cancer followed by brain cancer or glioblastoma.
Pancreatic cancer is also the 3rd deadliest cancer which causes around 50,550 deaths.
Brain cancer is one of the worst cancers and is also one of the hardest cancers to cure which is the 10th leading cause of death for women and men.
Glioblastoma is the most aggressive brain cancer and neurofibroma is the least aggressive brain cancer.
The fastest spreading brain cancer is glioblastoma which is also known as grade IV astrocytoma which is the fastest growing and most aggressive brain cancer.
Glioblastoma brain cancer invades the nearby tissue although it does not generally spread to distant organs.
Some brain cancers are curable if they can be completely removed by most brain cancers are not curable.
The outcome of malignant brain cancer tumors depend on how slowly or how quickly the brain cancer tumor develops and how well it responds to treatment.
Brain cancer is almost always 100% fatal as it's very hard to cure.
However there have been a few people that have beat brain cancer and survived but most people with brain cancer die within 5 years to 10 years in most cases.
The longest anyone has survived glioblastoma brain cancer was more than 20 years.
The deadliest type of brain cancer is Glioblastoma which is also known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).
Glioblastoma is the most common and most aggressive form of brain cancer and has a very poor prognosis in survival.
The symptoms of Glioblastoma brain cancer include speech difficulty, memory loss, weakness on one side of the body, changes in your personality, drowsiness, vomiting and nausea, seizures and headaches.
Your life expectancy with brain cancer is between 5 years to 10 years depending on how far progressed the brain cancer is at diagnoses.
In some cases people may die within 1 to 2 years with brain cancer and others with brain cancer survive 5 to 10 years.
Brain cancer is a terminal cancer because even with treatment it is very hard to cure.
Some people have survived brain cancer with treatment but it's rare and can even come back even after having surgery.
The brain tumor that has the worst prognosis is Glioblastoma multiforme which is the most aggressive and most common primary intracranial tumor.
Even with modern therapies and treatments it is still fatal with very poor prognosis with a median survival of 14 months.
The signs that cancer has spread to the brain are.
Headache, sometimes with vomiting or nausea.
Mental changes, such as increasing memory problems.
Seizures.
Weakness or numbness on one side of the body.
Numbness.
Balance and coordination issues.
Headaches that are sometimes accompanied by nausea or vomiting.
Dizziness.
Cognitive impairment, including confusion, memory loss and personality changes.
Once cancer spreads to the brain you usually have up to 6 months to live without treatment.
With treatment you may live a few years or even longer once cancer spreads to the brain.
Once cancer spreads to the brain the cancer puts pressure on the brain and the cancer changes the function of the surrounding brain tissue which then causes symptoms such as headache, personality changes, memory loss and seizures.
The symptoms of end stage brain cancer include.
Frequent headaches.
Agitation and delirium.
Agonal breathing (gasping breaths that occur when a person is struggling to breathe)
Prolonged confusion.
Hallucinations.
Loss of appetite.
Vision loss.
Involuntary movements.
The final stages of metastatic brain cancer are drowsiness, headaches, cognitive and personality changes, poor communication, seizures, delirium (confusion and difficulty thinking), focal neurological symptoms, and dysphagia.
Metastatic brain cancer (also called secondary brain tumors) is caused by cancer cells spreading (metastasizing) to the brain from a different part of the body.
The most common types of cancer that can spread to the brain are cancers of the lung, breast, skin (melanoma), colon, kidney and thyroid gland.