The centimeter to inch conversion used on the OCF site is just an approximation - 1 centimeter is .3937 inches (or 2.54 cm per inch). I just measured my thumb - it's 2.2cm in width by about 5.5 cm in length. That puts it a stage III. It could bump to a stage 4 depending on what other structures it was impacting as well lymph node involvement. My guess is that the possible invasiveness to critical structions is where the time critical part.

I remember that some country with a national healthcare policy was looking into fast-tracking cancer therapy to reduce the scary and frustrating wait time.