Staging

Staging, in lymphoma terms, means doing all the testing to see what type of lymphoma one has and how far it has spread. Just like in a rocket, you do a set sequence of tests to narrow down to your goal, in this case determining exactly the diagnosis (what one has) so a treatment plan can be drawn up and a prognosis (how is it likely to turn out) determined.



A hundred years ago, with little diagnostic equipment and no known treatments, it was like the rocket program, a dream, to think of cure. 50 years ago, both programs were in infancy, few great treatments, few great space successes. Today, we're off to the stars. Effective treatments have made the words remission and even cure commonplace. And we have two rovers still going on Mars and a probe around Saturn. It's a good day to see both.