Tumours are given a score known as the TNM stage.

• T stands for Each tumour is given a score between 0 (no tumour) and 4 (a deep tumour that has spread into a neighbouring organ).

• N stands for lymph A score of 0 means no lymph nodes have cancer, whereas a score of 3 means that seven or more lymph nodes have cancer within them.

• M stands for metastasis or A cancer has either not spread (0) or has spread (1).

• The final stage will be given as each letter followed by the number (e.g.T3N2M0).