Colon & Rectal Cancer Treatments
Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Treatment
The pancreas is a small organ in your abdominal region that helps with digestion and regulating blood sugar. When it becomes filled with abnormal malignant cells, it results in pancreatic cancer. Like all forms of cancer, pancreatic cancer is serious and life-threatening. In many cases, it can be more serious than other forms of cancer because it does not cause immediately visible symptoms, which means most cases are not diagnosed until they are late stage.
If pancreatic cancer is left alone for too long, it can spread to other parts of the body and is nearly impossible to treat. Therefore, it is important to get an early diagnosis if you suspect you have pancreatic cancer so that you can start treatment immediately.
Although it is the most invasive, surgery is often the primary treatment used to treat pancreatic cancer. The reason surgery is such a common option is that most cases of pancreatic cancer are too advanced for chemo and radiation to be effective.
The goal of surgery is to surgically remove any parts of the pancreas and surrounding tissue that have become cancerous. In most cases, this means removing the entire pancreas in a procedure known as a total pancreatectomy. In other cases, simply removing cancerous tumours in and around the pancreas or parts of the pancreas is enough.
The downside of surgery is that the pancreas performs essential functions within the body and you will need additional treatments to compensate for it.
Chemotherapy is a common and fairly effective treatment for pancreatic cancer. However, because most cases of this type of cancer are discovered too late for chemo to be effective, it is not always used as the primary treatment. Instead, chemotherapy is often administered after surgery to remove any trace remains of the cancer or to ensure it does not return. It can also be administered to treat cancer if it spreads to other parts of the body.
Chemotherapy uses specially formulated drugs to target and kill cancer cells and is often given through an IV. Chemo can prevent new cancer cells from growing. Unfortunately, it also has many unwanted side effects, including diarrhoea, nausea, hair loss, muscle pain, and many others.
Radiation therapy is a treatment where cancer cells are targeted and killed by special laser beams. As with chemotherapy, if pancreatic cancer is not discovered early enough, radiation will not be as effective as with other types of cancer. However, if cancer spreads to other parts of the body, radiation therapy is sometimes used to treat it.
Radiation therapy is often given simultaneously with chemotherapy and has many of the same unwanted side effects. In most cases, it’s administered after chemotherapy to eradicate any cancer cells that the chemo misses or to reduce the chances of the cancer returning.
Chemotherapy and radiation are fairly broad-spectrum treatments that attack and destroy cancer cells without much direction. Targeted therapy, on the other hand, is where doctors use medications to target specific parts of cancer cells to destroy them from the inside out. This treatment is most effective when combined with chemotherapy and/or radiation, but it has the same problem of not being effective if the cancer is too advanced.
The key to surviving pancreatic cancer is to receive an early diagnosis and start treatment as quickly as possible. Failing to do so could lead to advanced or metastasized pancreatic cancer that is incurable. While surgery is the best treatment available, you will also likely need chemotherapy and radiation to remove any remaining cancer or to keep it from returning.