Неврозы – Neuroses

Where are cancer cells most likely to escape being killed by chemotherapy drugs? Firstly, they may escape wherever there are big deposits. One of the biggest deposits is often, but not always, the primary cancer. There may be a choice between surgery and radiation to tackle these large deposits. Secondly, there are parts of the body where there seems to be some sort of barrier to the penetration of chemotherapy drugs. Radiotherapy can be used to treat these areas. They are the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), the testis and the ovary. For example, in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia of children, the chance of leukaemia cells getting into the central nervous system, testis or ovary is so high that preventive treatment of these areas by radiation is recommended. This addition to the usual chemotherapy treatment has been shown to improve the cure rate.
Bone marrow transplantation is a special instance where radiation is combined with other treatments to produce some cures. The preparation includes radiation of the whole body. Although bone marrow transplantation has been tried for many types of cancer, the only ones it can cure are certain types of leukaemia. The entire treatment package is very arduous, dangerous and lengthy and the chance of cure is usually not high. Try very hard to get all the facts before agreeing to this type of treatment.
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Cancer

Obviously, the more different types of treatment you have, the more your treatment is likely to ‘cost’. The situation with combination treatments is so complex that you could be very tempted just to tell your doctor to go ahead with whatever is most likely to cure you. The problem is that doctors have a tendency to overtreat, as we have seen. They are likely to want to add to your treatment anything that could be active against your cancer. They will probably make little or no attempt to weigh the likely additional cost against the likely additional benefit. In any case, you can do that much better than they can. It is therefore very important that you ask exactly what difference each part of your treatment is likely to make. What could happen if you only had one type of treatment? Does the addition of radiation improve the cure rate or only the local recurrence rate? How difficult is it to treat a recurrence? Would you still have a chance of cure if the disease recurred or is the ‘first bite at the cherry’ really your only chance? You will have to try to weigh up the possible costs against the possible benefits to come up with the decision that is best for you.
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Cancer