Summary for HealthiNation’s Cancer Treatments

Hosted by Dr. Holly Atkinson, Internal Medicine

What Is Cancer?

The word cancer refers to a large number of diseases characterized by abnormal cell growth that threatens to overwhelm healthy body tissue. Normal, healthy cells grow, die and are replaced on a very specific cycle. Cancer cells, on the other hand, don’t know how to die, and multiply uncontrollably until a mass of cells, or a tumor, develops.

Developing a Cancer Treatment Plan
The first step in developing a cancer treatment plan is called ‘staging.’ Staging is the medical process whereby your doctor determines how much cancer there is, if it has spread, and if so, where it is in the body. Your doctor might perform imaging tests such as x-rays, CT scans, and MRI scans. Often the tumor is biopsied, meaning a small piece of it is removed and the cells are examined under a microscope.

Types of Biopsies
Fine Needle Aspiration Biopsy. This type of biopsy allows the surgeon to withdraw a small amount of tissue from a tumor with a very thin needle attached to a syringe.

Excisional Biopsy. In an excisional biopsy, a surgeon cuts through the skin to remove the entire tumor.

Incisional Biopsy. In an incisional biopsy, a surgeon cuts through the skin to remove a small part of a larger tumor.

Typically, biopsies are performed under local anesthesia. The recovery process will depend on the type of surgery you have, and whether or not you need additional treatment.

Today’s Common Cancer Treatments
It’s important to note that the side effects of different types of cancer treatment vary so much from person to person, and from treatment to treatment, that they’re not a sign of whether or not the therapy is working.

Surgery. Surgery is the oldest treatment for cancer. It’s often the best type of treatment for cancers that haven’t spread, or metastasized.

• Preventative, or prophylactic, surgery is done to remove tissues like polyps and cysts that aren’t cancerous but contain abnormal cells and have the potential to become cancerous.
• Palliative surgery is used to treat pain in advanced forms of cancer.
• Laser surgery involves using a highly focused, powerful beam of light. It’s more precise than standard surgical tools like scalpels and does less damage to normal tissues.

Radiation. More than half of all cancer patients receive some type of radiation therapy, which uses much more powerful x-ray energy than is used to take simple diagnostic x-rays. The goal of radiation is to stop cancer cells from multiplying while sparing as much healthy tissue as possible. Radiation therapy is used in a number of situations:

• Before surgery to shrink a tumor
• During surgery to aim large doses directly at a tumor
• After surgery to stop the growth of any remaining cancer cells
• To decrease pressure and pain during cancers that can’t be cured

Radiation side effects can include fatigue as well as sunburn-like burns to the skin where the radiation beam was focused.

Radiation is used to treat many types of cancers and can be delivered in two ways:

• External Radiation. This type comes from a machine outside your body and is the most widely used type of radiation therapy.
• Internal Radiation. This involves a higher dose of radiation delivered to a small area. Rather than coming from machines outside your body, the radiation source is placed inside your body. These sources include tubes or capsules that are filled with materials that deliver the radiation, or seeds that are placed in the tumor itself. Sometimes, these sources are left inside the body after the radiation “runs out.” Your doctor may restrict contact with people while you're receiving internal radiation. This is because radioactive material can leave the body through saliva, sweat, and urine before the radioactivity decays.

Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy uses drugs, or chemicals, to kill rapidly dividing cells. These cells include both cancer cells and healthy cells. Unlike radiation, which targets a specific part of the body, chemotherapy affects the entire body. Most chemotherapy is given as a combination of drugs that work together to kill as many cancer cells as possible.

Typically patients receive chemotherapy intravenously. A thin needle is inserted into a vein, usually in the hand or lower arm, and removed at the end of the session. This type of chemotherapy can also be delivered into the body through catheters, or tubes; an entry port in the skin created by your doctor; and special pumps.

One of the most serious potential side effects is a low count of white blood cells—a condition called neutropenia. White blood cells help your body fight infection by protecting against foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses.

Another side effect of chemotherapy is anemia, which is the medical term for a low red blood cell count. A low red blood cell count may cause you to feel fatigued or sluggish because there isn’t enough oxygen circulating throughout the body. Thrombocytopenia is the medical term for a low platelet count. Platelets help your body stop bleeding by working with other blood factors to form a clot.

Your doctor will monitor your blood count throughout treatment to look for these conditions and treat them as necessary.

Promising Cancer Treatments

Biological Therapies. These are also known as immunotherapies and are designed to repair, stimulate, or enhance the immune system’s response to fighting cancer. Biological therapies may one day help your body better identify cancer cells and destroy them.

Cancer Vaccines are one kind of immunotherapy. They work by triggering your own immune system to fight or block cancer cells. Some vaccines are made of cells from your own cancer. Still others are made of cells from your immune system. Vaccines can also be used to prevent certain viral infections that can lead to cancer, such as Human Papillomavirus, or HPV.

Hormone Therapy. Hormones are naturally-occurring substances in the body that stimulate the growth of certain organs and glands, like the breasts and prostate. Hormone therapy combats cancer with drugs that block hormone production or change the way hormones work.

The goal of new, emerging cancer treatments is to destroy only the cancerous cells, leaving healthy cells alone. New research is revealing ways to do this in order to reduce side effects, get more patients into remission and to perhaps find a cure.

HealthiNation offers health information for educational purposes only; this information is not meant as medical advice. Always consult your doctor about your specific health condition.