Sunday, November 1, 2009
Aggressive treatment
Most of the cancers that can be cured with chemotherapy (acute leukemias, some lymphomas, testicular cancers) require intensive treatment, such as high doses of chemotherapy or radiation therapy, and a second opinion is useful for ensuring that the proper intensity will be used to achieve a cure, and not just a temporary remission. Occasionally, oncologists treat patients with curable cancer with lower doses of chemotherapy in order to decrease side effects. This practice can seriously compromise the chance for cure. Also, intensive treatment requires rigid adherence to prescribed doses of drugs to ensure that optimal treatment is delivered, careful monitoring for complications, and aggressive supportive care to manage side effects. In many instances, intensive treatment can be administered locally, but such patients are usually best treated in centers that use state of the art protocols (clinical trials) and treat large numbers of patients. If you are considering an aggressive treatment, you should determine how many patients are treated per year at your local treatment center and what the results are. Ask your treating physicians for their own results and not results from patients treated in other institutions.
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