Cancer remains as the 2nd leading cause of death. Despite the noticeable advancement in the medical field, thanks to pioneering research from specialist centres such as Cancer Treatment Mexico, cancer is still a mystery to most of us. There have been some changes on how the conventional type of treatment such as radiation therapy and chemotherapy are administered. There are also slight progressions outside the traditional form of treatment, but the conventional therapy remained as the only science-based treatment option.
Traditional Cancer Treatment: Surgery
Surgery as a form of cancer treatment is an invasive process wherein the surgeon will extract the cancer out of your body. When performing surgery, it often involves scalpels that will create an incision to the body. In most cases, the surgeon will have to create a cut on your skin and muscles using scalpels; however, there are also other forms of treatment such as photodynamic, hyperthermia, laser, and cryosurgery that doesn’t involve the use of scalpels.
Contingent upon the severity of your condition and the mass of cancer cell, surgery can be used to remove the whole tumor, minimize the tumor or ease the prevalent symptoms. Unfortunately, most traditional types of treatment come with a risk. In terms of a surgical procedure you may experience infection, pain, and drug reaction, damage to tissue and organs, blood clot, bleeding and slow recovery of the normal body functions.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy, popularly known as chemo is the process of using drugs in order to kill cancer cells. This type of treatment can be used in order to reduce the size of the tumor before implementing invasive procedure which is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy. It can also be used to destroy the cancer cells that remained after surgical procedure which is called as the adjuvant chemotherapy. This procedure has also been proven effective to eradicate the cancer that have returned or spread in the other tissue of the body. Sadly, Chemotherapy does not only hamper the growth of the cancer cell, but it also prevents the development of the healthy cells. This may lead to hair loss, nausea or mouth sores. The side effects will be relieved once you end chemotherapy.
Radiation Therapy
This procedure utilizes a high amount of radiation to shrink the size of the tumor or to kill the cancer cells. There are 2 known types of Radiation Therapy, the Internal and the External Beam; the internal therapy requires the source of radiation to be inserted in your body. The ‘source’ can be a liquid or solid matter. Liquid Radiation can be administered through the IV line while solid radiation is known as brachytherapy. External Beam Therapy requires a machine that radiates a strong radiation that targets your cancer. However, just like the chemotherapy, radiation therapy also affects the healthy cells. People receiving a radiation therapy will experience severe fatigue, blurry vision, headache, skin change, and nausea and hair loss.
Immunotherapy and Targeted Therapy are also conventional form of cancer treatment. Immunotherapy incorporates the strengthening of your immune system in order to fight the cancer cell while Targeted Therapy aims on the changes of your cancer cell.