Saturday, September 4, 2010

does the traditional cancer treatment of radiation therapy and chemo work

does the traditional cancer treatment of radiation therapy and chemo work?

Cancer - 7 Answers



Random Answers, Critics, Comments, Opinions :
1 :
It depends on what kind of cancer. My brother has had 5 surgeries plus 5 treatments of chemo and radiation and he is fine right now. He had testicular cancer. I hear lung cancer is one of the hardest to treat successfully. Good luck to you if you're going through that.
2 :
In my opinion, no it does not. My mother had cancer. She had radiation treatments and chemotherapy, which I believe is what killed her. She died when she was 49 years young. That was 21 years ago.
3 :
i think it depends on the person. my mom underwent chemo, and at the end of her treatment, no cancer was found. she lost all her body hair and was sick now and then, but for her, this was the way to go. however, a friend of mine was diagnosed with lung cancer a few years back, and could not in any way handle chemo. he was so sick, his ex-wife had to care for him. he lost his battle to cancer to to not following the program, and by not benifitting from the treatment. so it has alot to do with how the person can handle the treatment, if they can, and stick to the program, then yes everything can go great.
4 :
Treatment depends on the type of cancer, the location, what stage it is in and how up to date your doctor is, among other things. New treatments are becoming available all the time. Ask your doctor what your options are and the success rate for your cancer type. There are cancer web sites that have a world of information and will email you newsletters with the latest medical updates. Let me know what your cancer is and I can give you more info.
5 :
Radiation therapy and chemical therapy are different. If there is a tumor growing, the first option is a surgical removal of all unhealthy tissue and some of the surrounding healthy tissue. Sometimes doctors will use radiation therapy to shrink a tumor, which will then be surgically removed. If cancer develops to the later stages, it may reach the blood. If this is the case, cancerous leukoctyes (white blood cells) can circulate through the body, making any surgical removal impossible. Doctors will inject chemicals into the bloodstream that can keep the cancer in check, but most of the time this will only delay the growth. During this period of time, especially in older people, it is common for various pathogens to infect different parts of the body. In some cases, chemotherapy has helped a patient go into remission, and eventually reach cured status. Cancer is much more treatable than it was years ago. There are many different kinds of chemotherapy that are used in hospitals. In many instances, these treatments absolutely do work.
6 :
Of course everyone is different, but my mother was treated with surgery, chemo and radiation for breast cancer and she beat it!! My father recently had prostate cancer and he is doing great now, after being treated with radiation and a certain hormone reducing drug. Different cancers respond to different things, but chemo and radiation are often used together.
7 :
It depends what you mean by 'work'. They are not perfect, far from it, but we know, because they have been tried and tested in double-blind, peer-reviewed clinical trials, that they save some lives and prolong many, many more. If by do they work you mean do they cure all cancers, then no. There is no guaranteed cure for any cancer. Of course many people die from cancer despite all available treatments having been tried. Sometimes families of those who die, distraught and understandably seeking an explanation, conclude that it was the gruelling treatments that killed the person rather than the cancer. In fact deaths caused by treatment are extremely rare; there is a tiny and remote risk that chemotherapy may cause another cancer to develop, and everybody who undergoes chemo is made aware of this. Some of the few people who develop that cancer die from it. I don't know if chemotherapy and radiotherapy have saved my life. I do know that as a result of treatment - I had surgery, chemo and rads - I'm fit and well almost five years after being diagnosed with an aggressive, advanced cancer. I'm glad I threw every available treatment at it. If I die this year, next year, in five years, will it mean my cancer treatments didn't work? Well, it would mean they didn't save me, but nothing would persuade me that they hadn't prolonged my life. One day, I'm sure, chemo and radiotherapy will be looked back on with horror, much as we look back on blood-letting today. There is much dedicated hard work going on to find improved and effective treatments, and eventually (we hope) cures, but for now they are the best we have and as I've said they save some lives and prolong many more.



Read more discussions :
Posted by at