Staging is a critical element in treatment planning and should be clearly documented in the patient’s medical record. Synoptic reporting is encouraged where operative resection has occurred and pathological staging is available. The most widely used staging tools for pancreatic cancer are the American Joint Committee on Cancer’s TNM staging system and stage grouping. The imaging modalities used for diagnosis also allow for simultaneous staging of pancreatic cancer. The pancreatic cancer can be diagnosed and staged as resectable or borderline resectable, locally advanced or metastatic.

Staging for pancreatic cancer involves these tests:

• CT chest/abdominal/pelvis and positron emission tomography (PET)
• MRI pancreatic and/or liver
• laparoscopy plus or minus laparoscopic ultrasound for high-risk patients.

Visit the Cancer Institute New South Wales website for information about understanding the stages of cancer.