# Grade versus stage

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/grade-vs-stage/  
OnCo record `grade-vs-stage` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Grade describes how abnormal the cancer cells look under the microscope; stage describes how far the cancer has grown and spread.

## Summary

Grading, per the Wikipedia article, is a pathologist's measure of how much the tumour cells resemble the normal tissue they came from (differentiation), from low grade to high grade. Staging is the separate process of determining the extent of growth and spread, usually as a number from I to IV built from tumour size, invasion, lymph nodes and metastasis. Both are routine clinical covariates in prognostic models, and models that mix them up mis-state what they predict.

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-09-24
- Also known as: grade vs stage; grade and stage; grading versus staging; tumour grade versus stage
- Tags: cansim-terms

## Notes

- Listed in the CanSim terms map 1.0.0 (docs/onco/terms.json, generated 2026-09-24), CC BY 4.0, attribution: CanSim project, an open, public-data-first cancer foundation-model programme; CanSim page path /terms/grade-vs-stage.

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_(tumors)
- Wikipedia: cancer staging: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_staging
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grading_(tumors)

## Connected records

- terms: [AJCC stage (TNM staging manual)](https://onco.cc/terms/ajcc-stage/), [Cancer AI vocabulary (CanSim terms map)](https://onco.cc/terms/cancer-ai-vocabulary/), [Clinical covariates (age, stage, nodes, treatment flags)](https://onco.cc/terms/clinical-covariates/), [Stage](https://onco.cc/terms/cancer-stage/), [TNM staging](https://onco.cc/terms/tnm-staging/), [Tumour differentiation (well / moderately / poorly differentiated)](https://onco.cc/terms/tumour-differentiation/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/grade-vs-stage.json