Deciding which type of cancer treatment is best for you can often be difficult, and it's normal to feel overwhelmed. Here are four types of treatments that every cancer patient should know about.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is a common cancer treatment that uses drugs to slow or stop cancer cells from growing. In addition to curing cancer or lessening the probability that it'll return, chemotherapy can also be used to shrink tumors that are causing pain or discomfort. If you're looking for private cancer treatment, your doctor will choose the type of chemotherapy drug to give you and how often to administer it based on the type and stage of cancer you have.
Although chemotherapy is an effective treatment, it doesn't come without side effects. Unfortunately, in addition to killing rapidly-growing cancer cells, chemotherapy also kills healthy cells that grow quickly, such as those responsible for hair growth & line your intestines and mouth. This is why some of the most common side effects of chemotherapy include hair loss, nausea and mouth sores. However, these symptoms often subside after you've finished treatment.
Surgery
There are two types of surgery that a doctor can perform: open or minimally invasive. In open surgery, the surgeon will make a single incision to remove the tumour and some nearby tissue. On the other hand, minimally invasive surgery involves your surgeon inserts a thin tube with a camera on end into a small cut. The camera will then project images from the inside of your body onto a monitor, allowing your surgeon to remove the tumour and nearby tissue accurately.
Typically, surgery is the best option for those who have solid tumours located in one area & have not spread to other organs of the body. Although these surgeries are often successful, some complications can occur afterwards. The most common include pain, infection, bleeding or damage to nearby tissues.
Radiation Therapy
As the name suggests, radiation therapy uses high amounts of radiation to kill cancer cells or reduce tumour size by damaging their DNA. While a drawback of radiation therapy is that it takes weeks of treatment for cancer cells to die, an advantage is that these cells will continue to die for months after radiation therapy has ended.
One type of radiation therapy is the external beam, a local treatment aiming at radiation waves at cancer cells. Therefore, this treatment is best if your cancer is localised in a specific area. Still, if cancer has spread to other parts of your body, liquid internal radiation therapy may be your best bet. This is because the treatment travels throughout the blood and tissues, locating and killing cancer cells. Whichever radiation treatment you choose, you can expect some common side effects such as nausea, fatigue and hair loss.
Hormone Therapy
If you've been diagnosed with breast cancer or prostate cancer, hormone therapy may be the best treatment for you. Because these cancers use hormones to grow, hormone therapy can treat them by either blocking your body's hormone production or interfering with how hormones act in your body.
While the type of hormone treatment depends on the type and stage of cancer you have, it's typically used in conjunction with other cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Some common side effects of hormone therapy for women are hot flashes, vaginal dryness and nausea, while those for men include weakened bones, diarrhea and fatigue.
Choosing the best cancer treatment can be difficult and overwhelming, so it's best to educate yourself on the different options to find the best cancer treatment for your needs.
