Treatment Overview
Choice of cancer treatment is influenced by several factors, including the specific characteristics of your cancer; your overall condition; and whether the goal of treatment is to cure your cancer, keep your cancer from spreading, or to relieve the symptoms caused by cancer. Depending on these factors, you may receive one or more of the following:
Precision Cancer Medicines
Precision cancer medicine uses targeted drugs and immunotherapies engineered to directly attack cancer cells with specific genetic abnormalities, leaving normal cells largely unharmed.
Cancer cells may differ from one another based on what genes have mutations. Precision cancer medicine utilizes molecular diagnostic testing, including DNA sequencing, to identify cancer-driving abnormalities in a cancer’s genome. This “genomic testing” is performed on a biopsy sample of the cancer and increasingly in the blood using a “liquid biopsy”
Precision cancer medicines can be used both instead of and in addition to chemotherapy to improve treatment outcomes.
All newly diagnosed individuals should make sure they discuss the role of genomic – biomarker testing with their doctor.
One or more treatment modalities may be used to provide you with the most effective treatment. Increasingly, it is common to use several treatment modalities together (concurrently) or in sequence with the goal of preventing recurrence. This is referred to as multi-modality treatment of the cancer.
Learn more about Precision Cancer Medicines.
Surgery
Surgery is used to diagnose cancer, determine its stage, and to treat cancer. One common type of surgery that may be used to help with diagnosing cancer is a biopsy. A biopsy involves taking a tissue sample from the suspected cancer for examination by a specialist in a laboratory. A biopsy is often performed in the physician’s office or in an outpatient surgery center. A positive biopsy indicates the presence of cancer; a negative biopsy may indicate that no cancer is present in the sample.
When surgery is used for treatment, the cancer and some tissue adjacent to the cancer are typically removed. In addition to providing local treatment of the cancer, information gained during surgery is useful in predicting the likelihood of cancer recurrence and whether other treatment modalities will be necessary.
Learn more about surgery.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is any treatment involving the use of drugs to kill cancer cells. Cancer chemotherapy may consist of single drugs or combinations of drugs, and can be administered through a vein, injected into a body cavity, or delivered orally in the form of a pill. Chemotherapy is different from surgery or radiation therapy in that the cancer-fighting drugs circulate in the blood to parts of the body where the cancer may have spread and can kill or eliminate cancers cells at sites great distances from the original cancer. As a result, chemotherapy is considered a systemic treatment.
More than half of all people diagnosed with cancer receive chemotherapy. For millions of people who have cancers that respond well to chemotherapy, this approach helps treat their cancer effectively, enabling them to enjoy full, productive lives. Furthermore, many side effects once associated with chemotherapy are now easily prevented or controlled, allowing many people to work, travel, and participate in many of their other normal activities while receiving chemotherapy.
Learn more about chemotherapy
Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy, or radiotherapy, uses high-energy rays to damage or kill cancer cells by preventing them from growing and dividing. Similar to surgery, radiation therapy is a local treatment used to eliminate or eradicate visible tumors. Radiation therapy is not typically useful in eradicating cancer cells that have already spread to other parts of the body. Radiation therapy may be externally or internally delivered. External radiation delivers high-energy rays directly to the tumor site from a machine outside the body. Internal radiation, or brachytherapy, involves the implantation of a small amount of radioactive material in or near the cancer. Radiation may be used to cure or control cancer, or to ease some of the symptoms caused by cancer. Sometimes radiation is used with other types of cancer treatment, such as chemotherapy and surgery, and sometimes it is used alone.
For more information, go to Radiation Therapy.
Hormonal Therapy
Hormones are naturally occurring substances in the body that stimulate the growth of hormone sensitive tissues, such as the breast or prostate gland. When cancer arises in breast or prostate tissue, its growth and spread may be caused by the body’s own hormones. Therefore, drugs that block hormone production or change the way hormones work, and/or removal of organs that secrete hormones, such as the ovaries or testicles, are ways of fighting cancer. Hormone therapy, similar to chemotherapy, is a systemic treatment in that it may affect cancer cells throughout the body.
Learn more about Hormonal Therapy
Immunotherapy
The immune system recognizes cancer cells as foreign but cancer cells are very good at finding ways to hide from, suppress, or wear out the immune system and avoid immune destruction. The immune system may not attack cancer cells because it fails to recognize them as foreign and harmful.
Immunotherapy seeks to utilize a person’s own immune response to treat their cancer by either activating the immune system directly, or by inhibiting mechanisms of suppression of the cancer.
General types of immunotherapy include interferon, interleukin, and colony stimulating factors (cytokines), which generally activate the immune system to attack the cancer. These general immunotherapies however are not specific and their activation of the immune system can cause severe side effects by attacking normal cells along with cancer cells. Immunotherapy treatment of cancer has progressed considerably over the past 30 years and has evolved from a general to more precisely targeted immunotherapy treatment. Examples of precision immunotherapy include checkpoint inhibitors, CAR T cells, and vaccines.
Optimizing Treatment
By proactively understanding and managing aspects of your treatment, you can help ensure the best possible outcome from treatment and maintain some degree of control in your life. Things you can do to optimize treatment of cancer are:
- Get informed
- Stay organized
- Discuss the effectiveness of treatment
- Work with your physician to select the best treatment for you
Don’t forget that fighting cancer is not a challenge you should face alone. It is a team effort that involves family, friends, and your healthcare team. Don’t overlook the strength that can come from having your support network by your side. In order to ensure optimal treatment, consider the following:
Get informed: A new diagnosis of cancer can be a shock, making you feel out of control and overwhelmed. Getting informed can help alleviate these feelings. Seek out many resources to investigate your treatment options for your type and stage of cancer. Resources should include your healthcare team, second opinions, books, the internet, and other patients with your disease. As you learn, identify the specific questions that only your doctor can answer.
Most importantly, work toward understanding your diagnosis and stage of disease, goals of therapy, treatment plan, benefits of treatment, and possible side effects. Following a diagnosis of cancer, the most important step is to accurately define the stage of your disease. Staging is a system that describes how far the cancer has spread. (Keep in mind that some cancers, such as leukemia, may not be staged.) Each stage of cancer may be treated differently. In order for you to begin evaluating and discussing treatment options with your healthcare team, you need to find out from your doctor the correct stage of your cancer.
Stay organized: Develop a system for keeping all the information that you gather organized, such as laboratory and test results, admissions and consultation information, and additional instructions. Keep a folder or three-ring binder with all your information in one location.
Discussing the effectiveness of treatment: It is important that you and your caregivers are able to evaluate treatment options and to understand how cancer treatments are compared so that you can work with your healthcare team to make informed treatment choices. Understanding the goals of a specific therapy, as well as the risk and benefits it poses, will help you decide which treatment is most appropriate for your situation. Patients typically receive cancer treatment in order to cure the cancer, prolong the duration of their life or alleviate symptoms caused by the cancer and improve their quality of life. These potential benefits of treatment must be balanced against the risks of treatment. Some risks posed by various cancer treatments may include time away from family and friends, uncomfortable side effects of therapy and/or long-term complications or death.
The most common term used to describe the effectiveness of cancer treatment is remission. Remission means that the cancer has disappeared and can no longer be measured using existing technology. Oncologists use the terms partial and complete remission to describe partial or complete disappearance of cancer after treatment. A cancer cannot be cured if a remission is not obtained; however, a remission does not always ensure that a cancer is cured. The best ways to evaluate the benefits of treatment are to examine the duration of remission, survival, and disease-free survival (cure). Since it often takes many years to determine whether a new treatment is better than a previous treatment, remission rates may be useful for comparing therapies when patients have not been evaluated long enough to know whether the chance of cure or survival is improved.
Treatment of cancer is associated with risks. It is important that you evaluate the risks and benefits of treatment within the context of the overall goal of receiving cancer therapy.
Cancer treatment may be inconvenient, prolonged, or unavailable close to home. These are important considerations when evaluating treatment options, but not typically mentioned in medical journals reporting the results and benefits of new treatments.
Select your optimal treatment: Cancer treatment varies depending upon your type of cancer, stage of cancer, and overall condition. Additionally, treatment options may vary depending on whether or not the goal of treatment is to cure the cancer, keep the cancer from spreading, or to relieve the symptoms caused by cancer. You and your physician will consider all of these factors as you work on selecting your optimal treatment.
Questions to Ask
Being educated and informed will help you make the best decisions about your cancer treatment. Get all the information you can as early as possible concerning your evaluation, treatment, and possible side effects. The sooner you know about side effects and possible treatments, the more likely you are to protect yourself against them,or manage them more effectively.
Your doctor and nurse are your best sources of information, but you must remember to ask questions. There is no such thing as a dumb question. Don’t be afraid to ask anything that is on your mind. To make the most of your opportunities to learn from your health care providers, read as much as you can and make a list of questions before each appointment. Also, ask family, friends, and your support team to help you remember the questions. These approaches will help you talk more effectively with your doctor or nurse. Finally, you or your caregiver should consider taking notes during your visit to ensure you remember what you learned.
The following are some questions, grouped by topic, which you may wish to ask your nurse or physician:
Your Cancer
- Do you typically treat patients with my diagnosis?
- What stage is my cancer?
- Is there anything unique about my cancer that makes my prognosis better or worse?
- Should I get a second opinion?
Cancer Treatment
- What is the goal of treatment?
- To cure my cancer or stop it from growing?
- What are my treatment options?
- How can each treatment option help me achieve my goal of therapy?
- What risks or potential side effects are associated with each treatment?
- What research studies (“clinical trials”) are available?
- Are there any clinical trials that are right for me?
- How long will I receive treatment, how often, and where?
- How will it be given?
- How will I know if the treatment is working?
- How might a disruption in my chemotherapy dose or timing affect my results?
- How and when will I be able to tell whether the treatment is working?
- What are the names of all the drugs I will be taking?
- Can I talk with another of your patients who has received this treatment?
- Are there any resources or Web sites you recommend for more information?
Tests
- What types of lab tests will I need?
- Will I need x-rays and scans?
- Can you explain the results of my complete blood count (CBC)?
- Are there tests for the genetic make-up of my cancer?
- Will I benefit from having my cancer evaluated for its genetic make-up?
- How frequently will I get the tests?
Side Effects of Treatment
- What possible side effects should I prepare for?
- When might they start?
- Will they get better or worse as my treatment goes along?
- How can I prepare for them or lessen their impact?
- Are there treatments that can help relieve the side effects? What are they? Do you usually recommend or prescribe them?
- Which risks are most serious?
- Will I require blood transfusions? Why?
- How can I best monitor myself for complications related to either my disease or my treatment?
Protecting Against Infection
- Will my type of chemotherapy put me at risk for a low white blood cell count and infection?
- Can I help protect myself against infection right from the start of chemotherapy, instead of waiting until problems develop?
- Am I at special risk for infection?
- What are the signs of infection?
- How serious is an infection?
- How long will I be at risk for infection?
- What should I do if I have a fever?
- How are infections treated?
Daily Activities
- How will my cancer treatment affect my usual activities?
- Will I be able to work?
- Will I need to stay in the hospital?
- Will I need someone to help me at home?
- Will I need help taking care of my kids?
- Are there any activities I should avoid during my chemotherapy?
What to Expect After Treatment
- What happens after I complete my treatment?
- How can I best continue to monitor myself for complications related to either my disease or my treatment?
- What kind of lab tests will I need?
- How frequently should I get those lab tests?
- What types of x-rays and scans will I need?
- How often do I need to come in for checkups?
- When will you know if I am cured?
- What happens if my disease comes back?
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