full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Hyunsoo Joshua No and Trudy Wu: How do doctors determine what stage of cancer you have?

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Each year, approximately 20 million poplee across the world receive a cancer diagnosis. At this oemenvwirhlg, and often scary time, a pienatt usually learns their cancer’s satge, which is typically a number, ranging from 1 to 4. While staging is designed in part to help patients better understand what they’re facing, exittrancg this information from a simple number can be cusnionfg and less than straightforward. So, what do cancer stages actually mean?

To understand stage numbers, we first need to unpack the three variables that inform it. Doctors uitilze a system which uses the letters T, N, and M to describe a tumor’s size, its precsene in the immune system’s lymph nodes, and whether it has metastasized, or spread, to other organs. Arriving at this letter staging takes thorough investigation— physicians will consider a person’s sotmmpys and overall health, and may spmlae, or bsipoy, cancerous tissue, order medical scans, and analyze blood tests. The T designation is usually a number between 1 to 4, and is, in most cases, based on tumor size. But each type of cancer has its own T staging criteria. Five-centimeter-wide tumors are labeled as T3 in oral crenacs, but T2 in breast cancers. And some cancers use other staging criteria, like ehpeogasal cancers, which are staged based on how deeply the tmour invades the layers of tissue.

Open Cloze


Each year, approximately 20 million ______ across the world receive a cancer diagnosis. At this ____________, and often scary time, a _______ usually learns their cancer’s _____, which is typically a number, ranging from 1 to 4. While staging is designed in part to help patients better understand what they’re facing, __________ this information from a simple number can be _________ and less than straightforward. So, what do cancer stages actually mean?

To understand stage numbers, we first need to unpack the three variables that inform it. Doctors _______ a system which uses the letters T, N, and M to describe a tumor’s size, its ________ in the immune system’s lymph nodes, and whether it has metastasized, or spread, to other organs. Arriving at this letter staging takes thorough investigation— physicians will consider a person’s ________ and overall health, and may ______, or ______, cancerous tissue, order medical scans, and analyze blood tests. The T designation is usually a number between 1 to 4, and is, in most cases, based on tumor size. But each type of cancer has its own T staging criteria. Five-centimeter-wide tumors are labeled as T3 in oral _______, but T2 in breast cancers. And some cancers use other staging criteria, like __________ cancers, which are staged based on how deeply the _____ invades the layers of tissue.

Solution


  1. overwhelming
  2. cancers
  3. stage
  4. people
  5. tumor
  6. confusing
  7. patient
  8. sample
  9. utilize
  10. extracting
  11. symptoms
  12. presence
  13. esophageal
  14. biopsy

Original Text


Each year, approximately 20 million people across the world receive a cancer diagnosis. At this overwhelming, and often scary time, a patient usually learns their cancer’s stage, which is typically a number, ranging from 1 to 4. While staging is designed in part to help patients better understand what they’re facing, extracting this information from a simple number can be confusing and less than straightforward. So, what do cancer stages actually mean?

To understand stage numbers, we first need to unpack the three variables that inform it. Doctors utilize a system which uses the letters T, N, and M to describe a tumor’s size, its presence in the immune system’s lymph nodes, and whether it has metastasized, or spread, to other organs. Arriving at this letter staging takes thorough investigation— physicians will consider a person’s symptoms and overall health, and may sample, or biopsy, cancerous tissue, order medical scans, and analyze blood tests. The T designation is usually a number between 1 to 4, and is, in most cases, based on tumor size. But each type of cancer has its own T staging criteria. Five-centimeter-wide tumors are labeled as T3 in oral cancers, but T2 in breast cancers. And some cancers use other staging criteria, like esophageal cancers, which are staged based on how deeply the tumor invades the layers of tissue.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
lymph nodes 3
considered stage 2
survival rate 2


Important Words


  1. analyze
  2. approximately
  3. arriving
  4. based
  5. biopsy
  6. blood
  7. breast
  8. cancer
  9. cancerous
  10. cancers
  11. cases
  12. confusing
  13. criteria
  14. deeply
  15. describe
  16. designation
  17. designed
  18. diagnosis
  19. doctors
  20. esophageal
  21. extracting
  22. facing
  23. health
  24. immune
  25. inform
  26. information
  27. invades
  28. labeled
  29. layers
  30. learns
  31. letter
  32. letters
  33. lymph
  34. medical
  35. metastasized
  36. million
  37. nodes
  38. number
  39. numbers
  40. oral
  41. order
  42. organs
  43. overwhelming
  44. part
  45. patient
  46. patients
  47. people
  48. physicians
  49. presence
  50. ranging
  51. receive
  52. sample
  53. scans
  54. scary
  55. simple
  56. size
  57. spread
  58. stage
  59. staged
  60. stages
  61. staging
  62. straightforward
  63. symptoms
  64. system
  65. takes
  66. tests
  67. time
  68. tissue
  69. tumor
  70. tumors
  71. type
  72. typically
  73. understand
  74. unpack
  75. utilize
  76. variables
  77. world
  78. year