Pillsnews. Pharmacy News » Cancer

RADIATION TREATMENT – TREATMENT OF SYMPTOMS (PART 2)

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:30:01 +0000

If radiation is recommended to you for control of symptoms, I suggest you read Chapter 6 carefully. Aspects to consider are discussed in detail there. In brief though, the usual cost versus benefit balance must be weighed up. How seriously are the symptoms interfering with your day-to-day life? What other ways are there of treating the symptoms? What exactly would these treatments involve? What chance is there that radiation will control the symptoms? How many treatments would you need? How quickly would it act? Would you have to be hospitalised and if so, for how long? For how long would the symptoms be controlled? How likely is it that the symptom would recur in your lifetime? What side effects of treatment could there be? Could radiation that is mainly aimed at treating a symptom also result in you living longer (for example, by temporarily reducing the size of cancer deposits in the brain or by temporarily opening up an obstructed windpipe)? If it could result in your living longer, is this what you really want? What other symptoms could develop in that extra time? How likely is it that they could be controlled?

These are some of the questions that you should ask yourself and your doctor before deciding whether or not to have palliative radiation treatment.

*282/40/1*

Cancer

RADIATION TREATMENT – TREATMENT OF SYMPTOMS (PART 1)

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:29:22 +0000

I believe that one of the most valuable roles of radiation in cancer treatment is palliative — the control of symptoms. Here, the aim is not to cure or completely control the cancer, but simply to treat some of its symptoms. As a rule, the doses needed for palliative treatment are much less than for curative treatment because the aim is only to shrink a particular cancer deposit, not to kill every cell in it. Thus, the side effects of palliative treatment tend to be relatively minor. There are many symptoms that can be relieved temporarily by reducing the size of a cancer deposit.

Pain due to a cancer deposit in a bone can often be relieved by radiation. The radiation can also reduce the chance of fracture of the affected bone. Pain due to pressure on nerves or other sensitive structures near a cancer deposit may be relieved by shrinking the growth by radiation. Symptoms due to cancer in the brain like headache, vomiting, paralysis and numbness may be temporarily relieved by radiation treatment. A cancer growth that has ulcerated through the skin may be shrunk sufficiently for the skin to heal over. Bleeding from an ulcerated cancer deposit may be stopped by radiation. A cancer that is causing an obstruction may be shrunk by radiation enough to temporarily relieve the blockage and its symptoms. For example, blockage of blood or lymph vessels, bronchial tubes, the oesophagus (gullet), the ureter (tube from kidney to bladder) or the lower bowel may be temporarily relieved by radiation.

*281/40/1*

Cancer

SOME FACTS ABOUT CANCER SURGERY – INTRODUCTION

admin — Mon, 18 May 2009 06:57:11 +0000

You may be frightened of having any operation at all for cancer because you have heard that ‘letting the air in’ makes the cancer grow and spread much more quickly. What facts support this belief? How heavily should it weigh when you are considering the possible costs of a proposed operation?

It is true that some people die of cancer very soon after having an operation for it. If you look into it you will find that most of these patients have had operations which consisted simply of opening them up, having a look and closing them up again. In other words, most of these patients already had extensive cancer before their operation, so extensive that no useful procedure was possible. Rather than asking ‘Did the operation aggravate their cancer?’, I think questions such as these are more important: ‘What was the purpose of operating at all?’ ‘What possible benefit was expected?’ ‘Couldn’t they have found out before operating that it would not be possible to do anything useful?’

‘Open and shut’ operations should hardly ever happen. They can usually be avoided by careful assessment of patients. The diagnosis and probable extent of disease should be established by tests before any operation is planned. A properly-planned procedure is rarely made impossible by finding something unexpected when the patient is operated on.

*223/40/1*