A Guide to Different Types of Cancer Treatments In India

Cancer is the abnormal growth of cells so that they multiply without limits and consume all body resources, resulting in death. The cancerous cells can also turn other healthy cells into cancer and can travel to other parts of the body through the lymph vessels, thereby spreading the cancer. Cancer may affect many different parts of the body simultaneously as well.

Fortunately, there are also many different ways of treating cancer. It may also be treated to a combination of therapies. Below are the most commonly used methods for treating cancer.

Surgery

Cancer can be removed from the body surgically. Surgery is the treatment method chosen for the solid tumours and the cancer cells that are based locally within a body region or part. A cancel that is spread throughout the body, for instance, leukaemia, may not be treated to surgery, and blood cancer treatment is provided through other methods. Surgery for cancer treatment can be open or minimally invasive. Open surgery requires a large incision or cut, and the tumour along with the nearby lymph nodes is removed. Minimally invasive surgery for cancer treatment is carried out through making a number of small incisions. A laparoscope (a thin tube with a camera and light) is inserted within the body and the surgeon can remove the tumour through this medical equipment.

Lasers and cryosurgery are also considered to be surgical methods for treating cancer but these do not use a scalpel.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy can be used to kill cancerous cells that have spread throughout the body. Therefore blood cancer treatment in India uses chemotherapy. It can also be used to reduce the size of a tumour so that it can be later successfully and fully treated through surgery or radiation therapy. Chemotherapy can also be used as adjuvant therapy as well, where it kills the remaining cancer cells in the body, after treatment procedures including radiation therapy or surgery.

Chemotherapy has some serious side effects including hair loss. Chemo or the anti-cancerous medications can be administered orally, parentally, or through IV (intravenous), IA (intra atrial), IP (intraperitoneal) or intrathecal administration modes.

Hormone therapy

Cancer that grows on the hormones can be treated through hormone therapy. Medications that are used by an oncologist provides for the blocking the hormonal production or interference with the functional aspects of the hormones so that the hormones do not contribute to cancer growth. The hormone therapy is especially beneficial for treating prostate and breast cancer. Hormonal therapy can stop the growth of cancer, prevent its recurrence, and/or can slow its growth.

Radiation therapy

Radiation therapy includes the use of high energy rays that are focused on the cancerous cells, damage their DNA and kill them. As damaging the DNA may quite some time, the radiation therapy sessions may spread over weeks or months. This method of cancer treatment is often used along with other therapeutic procedures including surgery or chemotherapy.

Radiation therapy can take two forms. The external beam radiation therapy involves the use of a machine placed outside the body towards pointing the radiations at a cancerous region. The internal radiation therapy is the placement of a source of radiation within the body (for instance placement of radioactive pallets within the cancerous part).

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy, as the name suggests, is aimed at improving the immune system so that they can identify and find the cancer cells. For instance, immune therapy may mark the cancerous cells so that they can be easily shown to the immune system. Immunotherapy may include methods including vaccination, adoptive cell transfer, use of the checkpoint inhibitors (drugs that stimulates the immune system to react against the cancer cells), and proteins like cytokines that help the body fight cancer better.

Leading hospitals in India offer to you the best therapies for cancer in lieu of the type and size of tumour or cancer, among other aspects. A combination of therapies may provide for faster treatment, and active measures are taken to reduce the side effects.

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