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Various types of cancer treatment
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Different cancers are treated in different ways. Your doctor may recommend treatment of your cancer with combinations of surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, biological therapy, laser therapy, or bone-marrow transplantation.
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Depending upon the type of cancer and the stage of cancer you have (that is, its extent of spread and location), your doctor may recommend a specific sequence of these treatment modalities. In other words, in some circumstances, surgery would be the first treatment followed by chemotherapy or radiation therapy, while in other circumstances, chemotherapy might be the first, or the only, treatment that is appropriate.
For most cancers (except those that are very early or very late in their stage of development), a combination of these therapies will be recommended. This combination is sometimes called a multidisciplinary or multimodality cancer treatment plan.
It may be helpful for you to request an appointment with each of the treating physicians involved in a combination treatment plan, such as a radiation oncologist or medical oncologist, so you can hear directly about the indications, the risks, and the evidence for treating your specific type and stage of cancer with each type of treatment.
To help you understand the various types of cancer treatments, here is a description of each:
Surgery to remove a cancerous tumor is done when the tumor appears to be confined to one area, and the goal is to remove all of the cancer that can be detected by clinical and imaging tests.
Surgery may require the removal of an entire organ, such as the thyroid or prostate, or a part of an organ, such as the breast, colon, or lung, when cancer is detected in these organs. Sometimes, surgery is considered even when the cancer is more advanced and not in a curable stage. This is called palliative surgery, and the goal is to relieve or prevent symptoms of pain, obstruction, and bleeding. Preventive or prophylactic surgery removes tissue that is not cancerous but is very likely to become cancerous.
Chemical therapy, or chemotherapy, is the use of drugs to directly attack and destroy cancer cells that are growing out of control. The goals of chemotherapy are to control the growth of cancer cells and to prevent them from spreading to other parts of your body; to kill cancer cells that may have spread to other parts of your body; to cure your cancer by completely ridding your body of cancer cells; and to relieve some symptoms of cancer, such as pain, to make your life more comfortable.
Many types of chemotherapy are given by injection or infusion in the veins, usually in the doctor’s office or an outpatient setting. Some newer forms of chemotherapy are given as a pill.
This form of cancer therapy uses a certain type of energy called ionizing radiation to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. Radiation therapy destroys cells by damaging their genetic material so the cancer cells cannot continue to grow and divide. The goal of radiation therapy is to damage or destroy as many cancer cells as possible without harming normal cells or tissue nearby.
This type of cancer treatment uses biological substances that work to stimulate your immune system or your bone marrow to help fight cancer or control the side effects of other treatments, such as chemotherapy. Biological therapy may be used to boost specific aspects of your immune system so it can better destroy cancer cells and prevent cancer from spreading to other parts of your body.
This form of cancer treatment uses a laser — a highly focused and powerful beam of light energy — to shrink or destroy tumors. Laser therapy is most often used to treat cancers that are superficial, that is, cancers on the surface of the body such as skin cancer, and some cancers in the early stages of development.
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