Gleason score

Gleason Score

The Gleason Score is a system of grading prostate cancer. It was named after Donald Floyd Gleason, a pathologist at the Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Hospital who developed it in the 1960s.

Overview

The Gleason Score is used to help evaluate the prognosis of men with prostate cancer. Together with other parameters, it is incorporated into a strategy of prostate cancer staging which predicts prognosis and helps guide therapy. A Gleason Score is given to prostate cancer based upon its microscopic appearance. Cancers with a higher Gleason Score are more aggressive and have a worse prognosis.

Scoring System

The Gleason scoring system assigns a grade to each of the two largest areas of cancer in the tissue samples. The grades range from 1 to 5, with 1 being the least aggressive and 5 being the most aggressive. The two grades are then added together to give a Gleason Score. The highest possible score is 10.

Interpretation

The Gleason Score is always given as a sum of two numbers. The first number assigned is the grade that is most common in the tumor. The second number is the highest grade also found, but less common than the first number. For example, if the Gleason Score is written as 3+4=7, it means most of the tumor is grade 3 and the highest grade present that's less than 3 is 4; the total Gleason Score is 7.

Clinical Significance

The Gleason Score, along with the level of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) and the stage of the cancer, are the three key factors in determining the prognosis of prostate cancer.

See Also

• Prostate cancer
• Prostate-specific antigen
• Prostate cancer staging

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