Hearing that you have cancer can be a life-changing experience. The next step will be finding the appropriate treatment protocol to give you the best chance at a cure. Even people with the same type of cancer may have different protocols since there are several factors that will affect your treatment approach.
Type
A diagnosis of cancer is automatically intimidating for many people, but what they fail to realize is that some types of cancers do not require extensive treatment to be cured. For example, basal and small cell skin cancers are often cured just by removal alone, whereas melanoma requires more extensive treatments. The type of cancer you have will also affect whether surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation is done first. There are many types of chemotherapeutic agents and the way they are administered. Some cancers simply do not respond to certain types of chemotherapy or your treatment may require intrathecal administration because of difficulties in chemotherapeutic agents crossing the blood-brain barrier.
Stage
Generally, earlier stage cancers are easier to treat. Sometimes the treatment for cancer in the earlier stages may need to be aggressive, simply because oncologists have a history of working with that type of cancer and know more conservative approaches are not as effective long term. If a cancer creates a large mass, regardless of the stage, it may need to be shrunk before surgical removal can be attempted. For example, some forms of pancreatic cancer may benefit from the Whipple procedure, but the mass may be encroaching on major blood vessels. Doctors may recommend radiation therapy in hopes of shrinking the mass away from nerves and major blood vessels so surgery can proceed.
Receptors And Mutations
Some types of cancers, often those associated with the reproductive system, may be affected by hormones or genetic mutations that can influence treatment options. For example, breast and prostate cancer may have hormone receptors. If these cancers test positive for hormone receptors, doctors may include medications designed to block the production of hormones or at least block the receptor sites. The history of cancers with certain genetic or protein mutations may help doctors determine which first-line treatments might have the best chance at success. Some targeted therapies are helpful because they are able to hone-in on protein or genetic mutations. They may be able to stop or slow replication of cancerous cells by affecting cancer at the cellular level.
Cancer is a complex problem with many approaches to treatment. Since every situation is unique, doctors use individualized treatment plans to give patients the best chance at finding a cure. Visit a website such as http://swoncology.net/ for more information.