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Page 8 of 12 Remedies -- Conventional Therapies More and more, health care practitioners and well-informed people are realizing that treating cancer needs to be more than just about killing cells. Healing approaches must, above all, foster wellness by supporting your body's defense mechanisms against your disease, while promoting overall health. Why is overall health the key to cancer therapy? Simply put, by the time a cancer is symptomatic and detected, it has likely spread. The growth is an attack on your whole body and requires your whole body to fight back. Conventional treatments -- whether surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation therapy -- are very useful but do not expose the sources that cause cancer. To deal with those sources you must address necessary lifestyle changes -- changes that not only help your body rid itself of disease, but fundamental changes that help prevent cancer from occurring in the first place.
Surgery Surgery is often a vital tool in cancer treatment and can be employed for a variety of reasons: - Prevention: Some benign tumours have the tendency to become malignant and can be removed to lower your chances of developing cancer. In women who are at high risk of breast cancer, sometimes a prophylactic mastectomy is performed (removal of the breast) to prevent the disease from occurring.
- Diagnosis: A portion of the tumour can be removed to be used for analysis. This provides a very accurate assessment of the presence of cancer, while other, more elaborate operations are used to gauge the degree of spread to other parts of your body (such as removing samples from lymph nodes).
- Removal: Removing the cancerous tumour can provide a cure for certain types of cancer, especially if they are localized. The affected area, along with surrounding margins, are all removed in the attempt to rid your body of all the cancer. This is a major operation, but under the right circumstances, can generate the quickest and best results. In some cases, this type of surgery is necessary if the tumour size is impeding or blocking bodily function, or if it is causing some other type of structural damage or physical pain. Surgery can also be used to remove metastases from regions other than the primary tumour site.
- To Support Other Therapies: Surgery can be used to administer drugs intravenously, facilitating chemotherapy. For radiation therapy, surgery can be used to better target tumour sites.
Constraints Surgery is a very invasive process. And like any type of surgery, you must consider the operative risks, which depend on the type of surgery being performed. These risks, whether considering the immediate or long-term complications, are negligible when greatly outweighed by your risk of not having surgery. As well, surgery is not always the most appropriate treatment. Cancers can be inoperable if located in or around certain organs, while cancers that have spread to a considerable extent are not always helped by surgery. The condition of the patient is also a strong factor in the decision to operate.
Chemotherapy Chemotherapy is a widely misunderstood and increasingly controversial form of cancer treatment. It has shown to be very effective in the treatment of some forms of cancer, while some experts believe that chemotherapy is more harmful than beneficial. Chemotherapy simply refers to the use of drugs, or chemotherapeutic agents, to help fight off illness. Taking aspirin to ease headache pain is also chemotherapy. For cancer treatment, however, the drugs used are more aggressive and toxic and can lead to immediate and long-term side-effects far greater than those attributed to aspirin (though not all chemotherapy patients experience the side-effects associated to chemotherapy). Chemotherapeutic agents can be broadly divided into two major categories: those which are cell cycle specific, impeding the tumour's cell division, and those drugs that directly attack cancerous cells. The type of chemotherapy used depends on the type of cancer involved and on the stage of the disease. The therapy can be administered by several means: - Intravenously (IV)
- By means of a catheter (a thin tube that is placed into a large vein)
- Orally: pill, capsule, or liquid form
- Into a muscle (intramuscularly), under the skin, or directly into the cancerous area
- Topically (medication applied onto the skin)
Your age and physical condition also play important roles: a physically fit 40 year-old may be a better candidate for more aggressive chemotherapy, as s/he will probably better tolerate complications. A variety of drugs are available and are often used in combination, as cancers can build up resistance to specific drugs (or even a combination of drugs) after a cycle of treatments. Ironically, it is not the tumour that learns to resist the drugs but rather the drugs themselves, mutagenic in nature, that genetically alter tumour cells and protect them from further damage. This is one of the dangers of chemotherapeutic drugs -- they too are carcinogenic agents and can damage normal tissue, possibly causing other cancers. Other common side effects and complications of chemotherapy include: - Anemia
- Blood Clotting Problems
- Constipation
- Diarrhea
- Effects on Skin and Nails
- Fatigue
- Fluid Retention
- Flu-Like Syndrome
- Hair Loss
- Infection
- Kidney and Bladder Effects
- Mouth, Gum, and Throat Problems
- Nausea and Vomiting
- Nerve and Muscle Effects
- Sexual Effects: Physical and Psychological
Radiation Therapy Radiation is sometimes recommended as the primary treatment but is often used alongside chemotherapy and/or surgery. At one time, cancer treatment consisted of just chemotherapy, surgery, or radiation. Advancing knowledge of cancer treatment now suggests that when used in combination, better results can be achieved. Also called radiotherapy, the goal of radiation therapy is to administer high-energy x-rays, electron beams, or radioactive isotopes to kill cancer cells without exceeding safe doses to normal, surrounding tissue. The therapy can be applied externally with a radiation beam directed at the tumour through a machine, or internally, by injection or intravenously. Radiation usually consists of treatments given five times a week, for a period of 1 week to about 8 weeks. Treatments are often performed in several stages to allow damaged normal tissue time to heal. Calculating the dose of radiation can be complex, and involves the tumour size, location, and stage of the disease. For instance, the liver will tolerate a greater dose of radiation than your lungs or kidneys. Not everyone treated with radiation experiences side effects. Many people go through treatment feeling no adverse side effects. Common side effects of radiation therapy include fatigue, malaise, localized skin reactions, and heartburn type symptoms. Most side effects of radiation therapy occur as a result of treatment to the abdomen. In such cases, nausea, vomiting, cramps, and diarrhea can occur. Hair loss is only attributed to the area of the body being treated with radiation. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation are not the only conventional therapies available. Other treatments such as laser therapy or transplantation are amongst other available options commonly used. Prescribing the most effective course of treatment depends on each individual case. Be careful though. Conventional treatments tend to be very invasive and should only be used if they are likely to assist your recovery process.
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