While many people dread receiving a cancer diagnosis, it does happen. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that about 1,685,210 new cases of cancer were reported in 2016. They estimate that every year 454.8 cases (for every 100,000 people) of cancer are reported. The good news is that new treatments are being developed every day. These new therapies include new advanced cancer treatment options and mirror our better understanding of the basket of illnesses that fall under the umbrella of cancer. If you have been diagnosed with any cancer, you need to learn more about what you have.
For every kind of cancer, there are treatments that have been developed for it specifically. Additionally, there are different kinds of treatments that are based on the stage of cancer that is being treated. For some kinds of cancer, there is only one viable treatment option but for many there are multiple kinds of treatments that can be administered. When it comes to advance cancer treatment, how you deal with the illness will depend both on how how far advanced it actually is.
The first thing you should do is look into the various options you may have. Becoming an active part of your treatment begins before the treatment starts. Going into your cancer treatment center with a list of options and questions can help a lot.
Here are some of the kind of cancer treatment therapy that are available:
- Operate on it. This is when you have surgeon remove the cancer. The type and stage of cancer that you have will be a big factor in determining if this is a viable option. If you may be facing surgery, educate yourself about all aspects of this procedure and what you can expect. Every operation is different from others so you can prepare yourself better for yours if you totally understand it.
- Use radiation treatment for cancer. This is a more non-invasive cancer treatment that may work well for a number of kinds of cancer and stages. These therapies use radiation to kill the cells that are cancerous in the body. There are often side effects that accompany this kind of cancer treatment. The more you know about the radiation therapy and the side effects you can expect. That way you can make a plan for how to deal with any problems or issues that come from your treatment. Radiatio therapy for cancer has come a long way and may be a good option for you.
- You can use chemicals to kill the cancer in your body. This is called “chemotherapy” and if often the type of advanced cancer treatment options. There is a lot you can learn about how the chemotherapy that your doctor may prescribe can hurt the cancer that is invading your body. This is another treatment that has its set of side effects. Again, the more you know about what you can expect, the better you will be able to handle it.
- You can use targeted therapy. More and more research is being done on how cancer cells divide, grown and eventually spread through the body. Unlike many other illnesses, the cancer people get is merely from something that has been introduced to the body. Cancer develops when cells that are in the body mutate or change and become dangerous. Targeted therapy for cancer is one of the advanced cancer treatment options people have but can also be used in earlier stages of cancer.
- Fight your cancer with your immune system. It has traditionally been hard to use a person’s immune system to fight cancer cells because those cells are not recognized as being foreign by the immune systems. New advanced cancer treatment options are being developed to get the systems in the body to attack and fight cancer cells as they would do to bacteria or viruses.
Do not give up. Regardless of what kind of cancer you have or what stage it has grown to, there are a lot of advanced cancer options that were not available even a few years ago. There are also a lot more things you can do to keep your health and spirits up. Hope can really help.