Talent Mash

When a person is first diagnosed with cancer, here is a typical scenario…

The improper and sudden growth of the cells in particular part or over the whole body is termed as cancer. One of the methods which make use of anti cancer drugs to eliminate the cancer cells is termed as the chemotherapy treatment. Generally the anti cancer drugs are inserted into the body either orally or with the help of an injection.

It is a good factor that cancer can be eliminated with the help of chemotherapy. But the worrying factor is the cost for performing the treatment. It costs on the higher side. The cost depends on the drug used for the treatment and number of times the treatment performed. So in order to go for a chemotherapy treatment, you have to plan the financial needs. Initially it may seem less of cost, but after few times of performing the treatment, if the cancer cells aren’t destroyed, then the doctors will be increasing the dosage of the drugs, which increases the cost further more.

Also the cost depends upon the type of drugs employed for the cancer treatment. If the drug used in less expensive, then the cost will be relatively lower. If the drugs used are really expensive then the cost will be much higher too. For the inexpensive drugs it is found to be around 300 dollars, for expensive drugs it may be around 20000 or 30000 dollars.

Most of the patients die of cancer, as they didn’t have enough money for undergoing the treatment. Many insurance companies are providing a helping hand to meet this need. But they too have some terms and conditions.

Although some cancers may grow so slowly that treatment may not be needed, other grow fast and are a threat to life. Determining the need for treatment and the type of treatment can be a difficult decision.

There are a number of ways to treat prostate cancer. However, the choice will mostly be up to the doctor to determine which ones may be appropriate depending on the stage of the disease and grade of the cancer as well as the age and health of the patient. However, the longer the patient’s life expectancy, the more uncertain the prediction and choice of a treatment method becomes, as most prostate cancers progress with time. The feelings of the patient and the possible side effects are also to be taken into consideration.

Treatment for prostate cancer may involve watchful waiting, surgery, radiation therapy, or hormonal therapy. Some men receive a combination of therapies. A cure is probable for men whose prostate cancer is diagnosed early. However, surgery, radiation therapy, and hormonal therapy all have the potential to disrupt sexual desire or performance for a short while or permanently. Therefore it is advisable to discuss your concerns with your doctor.

Two major treatments have been proved to be efficient in eradicating localized prostate cancer: surgical removal of the prostate and vesical vesicles (radical prostatectomy), and radiotherapy (external beam radiotherapy and interstitial radiotherapy). It is admitted that patients who will benefit from these treatments are those whose life expectancy exceeds 10 years. No benefit is expected in older patients who are likely to die from another disease. However, for those with metastatic prostate cancer, hormone therapy or chemotherapy would prove more effective although radiotherapy could also be used.

Surgical (Radical Prostatectomy)

Radical prostatectomy involves the surgical removal of the entire prostate, the seminal vesicles, the tissue immediately surrounding them, and some of their associated pelvic lymph nodes. It is appropriate for men for whom it is believed the tumor can be removed completely by surgery.

The major advantage of radical prostatectomy is that because prostate cancer may be scattered throughout the prostate gland in an unpredictable way, the entire prostate must be removed so that cancer cells are not left behind. Many experts consider radical prostatectomy to be the gold standard treatment in young patients having organ-confined disease. Indications for radical prostatectomy are presumably curable tumors in patients whose life expectancy is above 10 years.

Radiation Therapy for Prostate Cancer

Radiation therapy, also sometimes called radiotherapy, is a general term used to describe several types of treatment including the use of high-powered X-rays, placement of radioactive materials into the body or injection of a radioactive substance into the bloodstream. These various types of radiation treatments are used in a wide range of settings. These circumstances include primary treatment of localized prostate cancer, secondary treatment for cancer recurring within the region of the prostate and for relief of pain and other symptoms related to prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.

The curative indication of external-beam radiotherapy is similar to that of radical prostatectomy: organ-confined cancer in patients with a life expectancy above 10 years. The treatment generally involves a 7-week course of radiotherapy. Radiotherapy is considered to result in lower rates of incontinence and erectile dysfunction than with radical prostatectomy. The major side-effects of conventional external radiotherapy are urinary irritative symptoms and bowel complications.

Hormonal Therapy for Prostate Cancer
When the prostate cancer is more advanced, and has spread to other parts of the body, treatment includes reducing the testosterone (male hormone) that supports the prostate and its tumors. Hormone therapy reduces symptoms and prevents further growth. Hormone therapy is achieved by either surgery or medication. Testosterone can be reduced by removing the testes; the operation is called a bilateral orchiectomy. The other commonly used option, however, is chemical castration – injecting synthetic LH-RH analogs every three to four months to suppress the natural production of testosterone. In doing so, it deprives the cancer cells of an element needed for growth. Using a number of medications, hormonal therapy attempts to nullify as much as possible all male hormone effect on prostate cancer cells.

There is also evidence that prostate cancer patients whose disease has spread to the lymph nodes will encounter prolonged progressive-free survival and a better quality of life with early hormonal therapy. While hormonal manipulation causes prostate cancer to shrink in 85 to 90 percent of a prostate cancer patients, total and durable eradication of the disease is unlikely. The good news is that hormone therapy may control prostate cancer for many years. The current hormonal therapy standard of care is, once initiated, to continue hormone therapy for life.

However, while hormonal therapy can put your cancer in check, there are unpleasant side effects such as nausea and vomiting, hot flashes, anaemia, lethargy, osteoporosis, swollen and tender breasts and erectile dysfunction. Evidence indicates that hormonal treatment when combined with radiation increases survival duration.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy refers to drug treatment using single drugs or a cocktail of several medications aimed at destroying cancer cells. The drugs circulate throughout the body in the bloodstream and can kill any rapidly growing cells, including both cancerous and non-cancerous ones. Chemotherapy drugs are carefully controlled in both dosage and frequency so that cancer cells are destroyed while the risk to healthy cells is minimized. Often, it is not the primary therapy for prostate cancer patients, but may be used when prostate cancer has spread outside of the prostate gland. Over the past 10 years chemotherapy treatments have been shown to improve pain control and survival for patients with advanced prostate cancer, who have progressed despite hormonal therapy.

Common side effects of chemotherapy depend on the type of drug used, dosage and length of treatment. For prostate cancer patients, the most frequently used chemotherapy regimen is docetaxel and prednisone. The most common side effects of this regimen are fatigue, nausea and vomiting, diarrhoea, hair loss, taste changes and a decrease in blood cell counts that result in an increased risk of infections.

Watchful Waiting

Watchful waiting/deferred treatment consists of a standpoint strategy until an active treatment may be required. Only patients with good compliance and easy access to healthcare should be candidates for watchful waiting. These men are counseled, and reviewed regularly with clinical examination and PSA measurements. The support for such management is based on the natural course of prostate cancer progression, which has been proved to be slow. Commonly, deferred treatment is indicated in asymptomatic old patients (life expectancy being less than 10 years because of age or debilitating conditions) with localized or locally advanced cancer. It is prudent to perform re-biopsy to avoid under-staging of the tumor.

Active Surveillance

Active surveillance is traditionally reserved for men with small-volume and low-to-moderate-grade prostate cancer, who have a low risk of death from prostate cancer. During active surveillance, men are followed closely with serial PSA, DRE, transrectal ultrasounds, and repeat prostate biopsies at regular intervals. It is different from watchful waiting in that men on active surveillance may elect treatment for cure when their disease appears to be changing and becoming more aggressive. The goal of active surveillance is to allow men to maintain their quality of life when the disease is slow growing or inactive but still allow them to be cured of prostate cancer when the disease appears to become more aggressive or is growing.

However, regarding the issue of prevention of prostate cancer, there is still a lingering controversy about true prevention. Consequently, most physicians believe that there is no easy substitute for a healthy lifestyle involving eating a healthy diet, avoiding dietary excesses, eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, getting lots of exercise and being physically active, visiting the doctor on a regular basis, and most importantly achieving and maintaining a normal body weight.

There have been claims (by unscrupulous creeps) that by learning biofeedback therapy, cancer patients can slow or stop the progression of cancer. These claims are fraudulent and, in my not-so-humble-opinion, cruel. The idea of placing the cause for the progression of cancer on the shoulders of the patient amounts to mental and emotional torture.

The truth is, however, that biofeedback therapy can be a very good complimentary therapy for cancer patients who are undergoing chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or surgery. Biofeedback cannot stop cancer. It can’t cure cancer, either, but it can provide a cancer patient
with the ability to reduce his stress, muscle tension, and pain.

The principle of biofeedback therapy is technicians using monitoring devices to provide information about physical processes (blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension, etc.), that are hard to detect without help and then giving (feeding back) this information in the form of a continuous signal like a sound or an image to the patient. The idea is that the patient can adjust his or her thinking, emotional state, or other mental processes for the purpose of controlling bodily functions and can see what works by changes in the signal being provided.

A biofeedback therapist provides guidance as the patient concentrates on changing a specific physical process, such as heart rate, temperature, perspiration, blood flow, brain activity, or muscle tension. When a patient learns how to control these normally automatically controlled functions, he or she can learn how to control pain, stress, and tension.

Biofeedback will NOT cure cancer, and it will not stop or slow the growth of tumors. But it can help to provide a better quality of life for cancer patients while they are going through the treatments that do have the potential to cure the cancer.

There are various treatments for stage 4 cancer available today, however, due to the low life expectancy of sufferers, the treatment is not intended to cure the cancer, rather slow down the effects of the disease, reduce the impact of symptoms and make a person’s life more comfortable. This article goes through the most common stage 4 cancer treatments.

Chemotherapy

In case you’re not aware, chemotherapy refers to the administration of drugs (medicine) used to slow down the growth of cancer in the body. These are administrated over a 1 to 3 day period every couple of weeks. Following the end of this period, doctors see how normal tissue has been affected before administering more chemotherapy. Chemo is known as an effective treatment, however, there are various side effects such as nausea, vomiting and loss of hair.

Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy involves bombarding high energy x-rays to those parts of the body that are affected by cancer. Such therapy is usually undertaken in coordination with chemotherapy so that as many cancer cells as possible are killed off.

Surgery

A more immediate and sometimes more effective form of treatment for stage 4 cancer is surgery whereby doctors physically remove as much cancer as possible to make life that bit more comfortable for the patient. However, this has limits as to how much cancer can be successfully removed. Given that the cancer has metastasized at this advanced stage, it’s impossible to remove everything. The rest can only be removed via chemo or radiation therapy and this is not even guaranteed.

Hopefully, this article has given you an informative insight into the treatments available for stage 4 cancer.

Last year I was diagnosed with cancer of the common bile duct and pancreas. I had the Whipple procedure performed which is a complicated surgery involving many organs. Soon after I had chemotherapy and radiation therapy, followed by more chemotherapy. This all took place during a ten month period in which my body was subjected to all kinds of drugs and radiation. As you can imagine, especially if you have gone through this yourself, I was extremely worn out physically and emotionally.

The biggest side effect of these treatments was fatigue. Fatigue is lack of energy or whole body tiredness that cannot be relieved by sleep. The chemotherapy was primarily a cisplatin regimen that has many side effects but the primary one for me was fatigue. The radiation therapy causes a cumulative fatigue that may last several months after treatment. Of course, all the other drugs the doctors prescribe have side effects that may contribute to fatigue also. Unfortunately, nothing was prescribed for fatigue!

The doctors recommended afternoon naps. That did not help. They also recommended light exercise, good luck with that! I was counseled by a dietician who recommended diet ideas that may help with the fatigue. Most things I ate or drank tasted bad or different than what I remembered due to side effects of the drugs I had or was taking.

I found two things that helped me through this ordeal. One was watermelon. I bet I ate one medium sized watermelon a day for several months. It tasted good to me and provided fluids to minimize dehydration. Poor diet and lack of fluids contribute to fatigue and watermelon really helped. The other thing I found was mangosteen juice. Drinking three ounces, three times a day also helped combat the fatigue I was experiencing. However, not all mangosteen juice is created equal! This particular mangosteen juice is made from the whole fruit of the mangosteen. It tastes great and I continue to drink it daily as I slowly recover from the effects of cancer and cancer treatments.

If you can relate to this article or know someone who could be helped by this information, please contact me.