Gleason Score (Basic)

A Gleason score is a number (usually assigned by a pathologist) that describes the grade of prostate cancer and helps determine treatment options. A pathologist assigns a grade from 1 to 5 to the two most predominant cancer patterns in your biopsy and adds the two grades to give the  Gleason Score. In practice, scores are often expressed as a sum (e.g. 3+4, 4+3 indicating intermediate favorable and intermediate unfavorable).