Cancer and Surgery
By Brent McNutt
Cancer is an insidious and horrid disease that claims the lives of thousands of people each year. Radiation and medication can help solve the problem, but surgery cannot be put out of the question when it comes to treating cancer. As such, there are different ways to classify surgery according to its intent: from the location and risk of the surgery to the urgency of the operation to be conducted. Each surgery has its own objective, whether to positively identify cancer or to make life easier for a terminally-ill patient. Diagnose
A surgery to diagnose cancer is explorative in nature, and has three primary conditions that need to be fulfilled before diagnostic surgery will even be considered: when a doctor needs to know what is going on in your body, when standard diagnosis procedures yield inconclusive or unsatisfactory results, and when the threat to your body is great and imminent.
MRI's, ultrasound and mammography can all help raise suspicion for cancer, but only a biopsy will determine for certain whether you have cancer or not.
A woman whose family has a strong history of breast or ovarian cancer is at high risk of developing it herself, and she is given the choice to have surgery or take the risk of developing cancer. This makes curative surgery impossible when the tumor is spread out or has grown unto a vital organ in the body.
Palliative surgery would then aim to block the pain that comes with cancer; allowing the patient to live out the remainder of his or her days without the torturous effects of radiation and medicine.
I suggest you check out my other CANCER summary on:
- The Leading Causes of Pancreatic Cancer
- Pancreatic Cancer Treatment
- Pancreatic Cancer Signs
- An Inside Look at Bone Cancer
- 4 Possible Cancer Risk Factors
