Staging determines how far cancer cells have spread, or metastasized, throughout the body from the place where they first began. This information can help the medical team determine how aggressive the cancer is and predict how it will progress. However, while primary spinal cord tumors can spread to other parts of the central nervous system, they don’t usually spread anywhere else in the body. That’s why these types of tumors are not staged.
Instead, your prognosis will be based on other information, including the type of tumor involved, the types of gene mutations in the tumor cells, the grade of the tumor (how different the tumor cells look compared with normal cells), the size of the tumor and the chances that it can be removed surgically, and other factors.