Unfortunately, lots of people throughout the world get a cancer diagnosis daily and none of them are prepared to deal with this type of news. The term “cancer” causes fear in people and this is more than clear. After being diagnosed with cancer, each individual experiences negative feelings and emotions such as unwished loneliness, loss of hope and control.

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These patients believe the worst and because of this, they have trouble digesting the information obtained. For many of them, coming to terms with the situation is hopeless. Sadness, confusion, anger, denial, guilt, depression and anxiety flood their minds. However, the truth is that unless you accept this frightening situation, you won’t ever succeed to conquer it. In such difficult times, there’s hope.

To be exact, patients should inquire more about the sort of treatments available by talking with a technical physician and select the most efficient way of complete cure. Needless to say, each individual has the right to seek a second or a third medical opinion about his specific case.

Good to know

Nevertheless, if two cancer experts tell you the exact same thing, then you need to save yourself time, money and other resources. Instead, you should direct your attention to the treatment choices. These include surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, medication, hormone therapy, immunotherapy and stem cell transplantation. After becoming acquainted with all these choices, the individual and his family has to make the important decision jointly.

Before deciding upon the most acceptable kind of cancer therapy, the patient should fully understand the diagnosis. Most people can’t help but browse the internet seeking answers, but this isn’t a smart move since the information found on various websites can be misleading. Asking questions to your physician about the various condition, in addition to the advantages and risks of each treatment will explain any uncertainty and help you get a fresh perspective on the circumstance.

Treatments

The oldest and the most frequent cancer treatment is surgery and it accounts for the elimination of the mass and surrounding tissues by a surgical oncologist. This sort of intervention has multiple functions, from diagnosing cancer and discovering the specific location of the tumor into analyzing the stage of cancer, relieving the side effects and restoring the body’s natural function. The kind of surgery chosen for a particular form of cancer depends upon the area of the body affected, the quantity of tissue that the surgical oncologist should eliminate and the patient’s wish.

There are two major types of operation; open and minimally invasive. The first requires making a huge cut so as to remove the mass and likely lymph nodes in close proximity. Minimally invasive surgery includes making small cuts so the surgical oncologist can add a laparoscope which permits him to see in the body when performing the operation. With special tools, he eliminates the mass and some wholesome tissues around.

This option is viable for bacteria situated in a specific location. It doesn’t work for leukemia or other cancer types which have already spread to various areas of the body.

Remember

Cancer cells multiply and grow at a faster pace and chemotherapy retains the purpose to slow down or stop this procedure. Therefore, this treatment choice can either cure cancer or alleviate the symptoms due to this alarming disease by decreasing the tumors accountable for the pain and other difficulties.

Sometimes, a physician recommends combining chemotherapy with a different treatment or other possibilities for better results. As an example, physicians can use it before surgery to reduce the size of the tumor or after the operation to destroy the remaining cancerous cells. Unfortunately, this sort of cancer treatment includes unpleasant side effects because chemotherapy doesn’t focus entirely on fast-growing cancer cells meaning that it also affects healthy cells such as those responsible for hair growth.

Because of this, during the treatment patients experience immense baldness. The most common side effects brought on by chemotherapy, besides baldness, refers to exhaustion, nausea and mouth sores. Those patients who opt for this kind of treatment need the assistance and support of the families more than ever since they can hardly take care of themselves. Even more, they generally spend the majority of the time because their body needs rest.

Final note

Radiotherapy, also called radiation therapy or x-ray treatment, kills cancer cells or reduces the tumors with high doses of waves or particles. Specialists also use radiation in reduced doses so as to find the interior of the patient’s body. This sort of treatment hurts the cancerous cells DNA impeding them to recuperate and inducing them to stop dividing. Whenever the cancer cells die, the body plays the function of eliminating them.

Patients who opt for this treatment method has to be completely aware that satisfactory results will only appear after days or months. There are two forms of radiotherapy, namely external beam radiation therapy and inner beam radiation therapy. With the first type of radiation, physicians use a big and noisy machine to target particles in the affected region of the body, making it a local therapy. The machine doesn’t even touch the individual.

Conclusion

On the other hand, with the next sort of radiotherapy, physicians place a source of radiation, in solid or liquid form, in the patient’s body. The sort of radiation selected for a particular kind of cancer varies according to many variables, which include tumor size and location, the patient’s medical history and overall health, his era, and other existing health problems.

Despite the fact that surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy represent the major kinds of cancer therapies used by physicians, there are other treatment options also. As an example, immunotherapy helps the patient’s immune system to deal with cancer. The process practically consists in using living organisms to create materials, that serves the purpose to treat cancer.