There are many available treatments for cancer. Each patient’s treatment plan is unique, and its design depends on various factors, such as the type and stage of your tumor, your general health, and your preferences. Therefore, you may require monotherapy or a combination of treatments, such as surgery with chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
After a diagnosis, a patient usually has a lot to learn and consider. All this new information you are exposed to can understandably cause stress or make you feel confused. In any case, discussing with your doctor and learning about the available treatment types can help you cope with the shock of the diagnosis and the insecurity that arises from it. Together, you and your doctor can weigh the benefits and risks of each cancer treatment to determine which is best for you. Furthermore, if you have concerns about the treatment plan your doctor has proposed, you should not hesitate to seek a second opinion.
The goal of treatment is to rid the patient of the tumor, allowing them to live a normal life. However, in some cases, this may not be feasible due to the advanced stage, and then the priority becomes shrinking the disease and slowing its growth, so that the patient can live symptom-free for as long as possible.
Depending on the application in each case, indicative examples of therapeutic strategies include the following:
In any case, your Medical Oncologist is responsible for clearly explaining whether the proposed treatment aims at achieving “remission,” “control,” or “relief.”
Treatment options include:
Surgical methods have a role in the prevention, diagnosis, staging, and treatment of cancer. They can also alleviate symptoms arising from cancer (e.g., bleeding, pain).
Although surgery is the most common form of primary treatment, it can only be performed if the tumor is surgically accessible and has not metastasized, meaning it has not spread to surrounding or distant tissues.
Chemotherapy, using anticancer (cytotoxic) drugs, aims to destroy cancer cells, both in the area where the tumor first appeared and throughout the rest of the patient’s body, since one of the main characteristics of cancer cells is their ability to detach from the primary site and spread throughout the body (metastasis).
Radiation therapy uses high-powered energy beams, such as X-rays or protons, to kill cancer cells. Radiation treatment can come from a machine outside the body (external beam radiation) or can be placed inside the patient’s body (brachytherapy).
Our cells normally grow and divide to form new cells. However, cancer cells grow and divide faster than most normal cells. Radiation works by making small breaks in the DNA inside cells. These breaks prevent cancer cells from growing and dividing and cause their death. Nearby normal cells may also be affected by radiation, but most recover and return to their proper function.
While chemotherapy and other forms of treatment taken orally or intravenously usually affect the entire body, radiation therapy is localized. Radiation treatments are designed to damage cancer cells with as little harm as possible to nearby healthy cells.
Some methods involve the use of radioactive substances administered intravenously or orally, with the radioactive substance concentrating mainly in the tumor area, resulting in minimal effect on the rest of the body.
Immunotherapy uses the immune system to fight cancer. Cancer can survive unchecked in your body because your immune system does not recognize it as an invader. Immunotherapy can help the patient’s immune system to “see” the cancer and attack it.
Certain types of cancer are fueled by our body’s hormones. Examples include breast cancer and prostate cancer. Removing these hormones from the body or blocking their expression can cause cancer cells to stop growing.
This is a personalized type of treatment that, through specific agents and pharmaceutical complexes-molecules, targets the protein expression and biology of cancer. These substances attach to cancer cells, thereby suppressing their growth, division, and spread. As researchers learn more about the DNA changes and biological pathways that drive cancer, they are better able to design therapies that target these proteins.
Alternative medicine refers to other methods used instead of conventional ones in the prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of cancer. Alternative therapies have either not been thoroughly tested in clinical trials, or they have been tested and found not to be effective against cancer.
Some examples of alternative methods include special diets, certain supplements and herbs, high doses of vitamins, homeopathy, and others. People with cancer may consider using alternative methods for various reasons:
Some alternative methods can be appealing because they engage the body and mind or involve medicines with natural ingredients. Some even promise well-being using methods that sound simple, natural, and without side effects, which is rarely the case for conventional cancer treatments.
While alternative methods rarely cause severe side effects, research has shown that individuals who use alternative methods instead of conventional cancer therapy have a higher mortality rate. By definition, alternative methods have not been sufficiently studied to prove their effectiveness in treating cancer, or they have been studied and proven ineffective.
In any case, the therapeutic approach you will follow is always based on more than one parameter. However, before deciding to proceed with any alternative form of therapy, make sure you have sufficient information about the potential benefits and risks, and you should always inform your doctor.
