Cancer patients may have no other choice but to resort to chemotherapy in order to treat their illness. In oncology, adjuvant chemotherapy will have quite a special role for the patient because it is related to other cancer treatments. Adjuvant chemotherapy represents an additional treatment given to the patient after surgery to help prevent any cancerous cells that may have not been completely removed during surgery from developing or increasing in number. The patient may relapse even if surgery has been performed because unfortunately, medicine is not sufficiently developed to be able to foresee whether cancer cells will reoccur or not.
Radiotherapy or regular chemical-based treatments are included in the adjuvant chemotherapy category and they are recommended by the doctors based on some statistical evidence which is employed in order to figure out whether there is low or high risk in relapse for the patient. Statistics indicate that about a third of the patients who have received adjuvant chemotherapy treatment have resumed good health only through surgical intervention. For those who are not included in the above mentioned third, the long term objective of the adjuvant chemotherapy is to lengthen the life of the cancer patients.
Adjuvant chemotherapy works for lots of cancer typologies from colon cancer to prostrate cancer, lung, breast and pancreatic tumors.
In terms of parallel treatments, adjuvant chemotherapy is complemented by neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. The neo-variant consists in the administration of drugs in the stage preceding the anti-cancer treatment per se. For example, neo-adjuvant chemotherapy may be prescribed to a breast-cancer patient who will have to undergo surgery for breast removal. The aim of such a type of therapy is to minimize the tumor size so that there are fewer risks and a higher rate of success in the surgical intervention.
All in all, adjuvant chemotherapy is presently considered more effective when it is prescribed after the tumor removal rather than before it because the remaining cancer cells are fewer in number and, as a result, the drug is more powerful on them. The drugs specific to this type of treatment are most efficient when they are administered directly into the blood of the patient, that is, intravenously; another way of increasing drug efficiency is to use it locally in the exact body part attacked by cancer.
Radiotherapy or regular chemical-based treatments are included in the adjuvant chemotherapy category and they are recommended by the doctors based on some statistical evidence which is employed in order to figure out whether there is low or high risk in relapse for the patient. Statistics indicate that about a third of the patients who have received adjuvant chemotherapy treatment have resumed good health only through surgical intervention. For those who are not included in the above mentioned third, the long term objective of the adjuvant chemotherapy is to lengthen the life of the cancer patients.
Adjuvant chemotherapy works for lots of cancer typologies from colon cancer to prostrate cancer, lung, breast and pancreatic tumors.
In terms of parallel treatments, adjuvant chemotherapy is complemented by neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. The neo-variant consists in the administration of drugs in the stage preceding the anti-cancer treatment per se. For example, neo-adjuvant chemotherapy may be prescribed to a breast-cancer patient who will have to undergo surgery for breast removal. The aim of such a type of therapy is to minimize the tumor size so that there are fewer risks and a higher rate of success in the surgical intervention.
All in all, adjuvant chemotherapy is presently considered more effective when it is prescribed after the tumor removal rather than before it because the remaining cancer cells are fewer in number and, as a result, the drug is more powerful on them. The drugs specific to this type of treatment are most efficient when they are administered directly into the blood of the patient, that is, intravenously; another way of increasing drug efficiency is to use it locally in the exact body part attacked by cancer.
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