Being diagnosed with cancer can be shocking. A new diagnosis can make you feel overwhelmed and out of control. However being informed can help ease these feelings. Did you know very few cancers need emergency treatment? You have time to address your concerns, ask questions, and learn about your diagnosis. You can also explore treatment options and get a second opinion. In this section our aim is to help you with the questions you may have before moving ahead with your cancer treatment.

What is Cancer?

The term cancer does not refer to one disease, but rather to many diseases that can occur in various regions of the body. Every type of cancer is characterized by uncontrolled cell growth. The body normally controls cell reproduction carefully, however, this process can malfunction, resulting in abnormal cell growth leading to the formation of a tumor, mass, or lump. Some cancers involve the blood and blood-forming organs. Instead of forming tumors these cancers travel through the tissues where they grow.

A tumor may be malignant (cancerous) or benign (non-cancerous) . When cancerous cells from tumors spread through the body, it is called metastasis. Metastasis, occurs when cancer cells that have broken away from the original tumor, travel through the lymphatic or circulatory systems and are lodged in a small capillary network in another part of the body. Common locations where metastasis can occur are the bones, central nervous system, liver, and lungs.

Cancer types are referred to based on which area of the body or organ the cancer originated in.Cancer that has spread (metastasized) is named for the area of the body where it began rather then the area it has spread to. For example, if lung cancer has spread to the liver, it is called “metastatic lung cancer” not liver cancer.

How did I Get Cancer?

One question that comes to the mind of every patient and those closest to them, is “How did I get Cancer?” It is a hard question to answer since it is not well understood why people develop cancer. There are some known cancer causing materials (carcinogens), but there are still many that remain undiscovered. Some people who are exposed to carcinogens get cancer and some do not, but we do not know why. Although it is believed that the amount of exposure and the length of exposure affect a person’s chances of developing cancer. For example, as a person’s exposure to cigarette smoke is increased, their chance of lung cancer developing will also increase. Another important factor is genetics. Certain kinds of breast cancer, for example, have a genetic component.

What’s Next?

After being diagnosed with cancer, you may be filled with shock and disbelief. The thought of chemotherapy or radiation can fill your mind with unpleasant images. However there are many reasons to be optimistic as you begin to walk the road to recovery . Medicine has made a lot of progress-and continues to make progress-in treating cancer. Treatments are becoming more tolerable, both emotionally and physically.

Cancer is not a normal experience, however you can maintain some normalcy in your life by being proactive about how you manage certain aspects of your treatment. Remember, cancer is not a fight you have to face by yourself, it’s a team effort. This team includes your family, friends and healthcare team. Having this support network around you, can provide strength that should not be overlooked. Learning about the cancer you have and talking to others who have gone through a similar situation can also help.

Cancer is not a single disease but a wide variety of diseases that affect different parts of the body. Each different type of cancer will be characterized by the uncontrollable growth of cells. Typically, the body carefully controls cell reproduction. These controls can fail, however. When these controls fail, the result is an abnormal growth of cells and development of a mass, lump, or tumor. Cancers that involve the blood will not develop tumors. The blood will circulate through other body tissues where tumors will grow.

Tumors are defined as malignant (cancerous) or benign (non-cancerous). Metastasis is the process of cancerous tumors producing cells that travel throughout the body. It occurs when these cells travel from a cancerous tumor through the lymphatic or circulatory systems and become affixed in a capillary network in a different part of the body. The central nervous system, liver, lungs and bones are typical locations of metastasis.

Types of cancer are named for the part of the body or organ from which the cancer originally occurred. If the cancer has metastasized to a different part of the body, it is still named after the original location. Such as, if lung cancer has traveled to the liver, it is named metastatic lung cancer not liver cancer.

The cancer treatment that is chosen has several influencing factors. At University Cancer Centers, your general physical health, is the goal of the treatment.  Whether to relieve symptoms, stop it from spreading, or remove it completely. Depending on those factors, the following treatments may be used:

• Targeted therapy

• Surgery

• Biological therapy

• Hormonal therapy

• Chemotherapy

• Radiation therapy

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A single treatment or multiple treatment modalities can be be used to offer you the best treatment. It is also increasingly common to concurrently use multiple treatment modalities, or to use them in sequence, with the end goal of preventing the cancer’s recurrence. This is called multi-modality cancer treatment.

Surgery

There are several uses for surgery in conjunction with cancer: Surgery can be used to diagnose types of cancer, determine the stage of the cancer, and treat cancer. A very common surgical method used in cancer diagnosis is a biopsy. Biopsies involve taking tissue samples from the patient suspected of having cancer. The sample is then examined in a laboratory by a specialist. Biopsy procedures can be performed in outpatient surgery centers or in a physician’s office. A positive reaction with the biopsy test confirms that cancer is present, while a negative reaction indicates that there is no cancer in the tested sample.

When surgery is utilized as a treatment method, usually the cancer and adjoining affected tissue are removed from the patient’s body. As well as treating the cancer location, information gathered throughout the procedure is very useful for predicting the chances of the cancer’s recurrence and whether or not other treatment modalities may be needed.

Chemotherapy

Any treatment that involves the use of drugs in order to destroy cancer cells is called chemotherapy. Cancer chemotherapy can consist of a single drug or a combination of many drugs. It can injected into a cavity in the body, administered into a vein, or it can be taken orally in pill form. Chemotherapy is unlike radiation therapy and surgery because the drugs that fight the cancer are circulated throughout the blood to areas of the patient’s body where cancer might have spread. It can eliminate or kill cancerous cells at distances far from the original cancer site. Chemotherapy is thus considered a systematic treatment.

Over half of all patients diagnosed with a type of cancer undergo chemotherapy. For the millions of patients whose cancer is a type that responds well to chemotherapy, this method helps to effectively treat their cancer, allowing them to have a full, productive life. Although there are many side effects that were once associated with chemotherapy, many of them are now controllable or preventable, allowing patients to travel, work, and be a participant in their normal daily lives even while undergoing chemotherapy.

Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy, otherwise known as radiotherapy, utilizes high-energy rays to kill or damage cancer cells by stopping them from dividing and growing. Like surgery, radiation therapy is known as a local treatment used to eradicate or eliminate any visible tumors. Radiation therapy is not generally useful in eliminating cancer cells which have already spread throughout the body. Radiation therapy can be internally or externally delivered.Internal radiation, also called brachytherapy, uses an implantation of a small portion of a radioactive substance near or in the cancer.

External radiation uses a high-energy ray that is directed at the site of the tumor from a machine located outside the patient’s body. Radiation can be used in controlling or curing cancer, or to ease some symptoms that are caused by cancer. Radiation is sometimes used in conjunction with other kinds of cancer treatment, like surgery or chemotherapy, or it can be used by itself.

Hormonal Therapy

Hormones are a substance that naturally occurs in the body which stimulates the growth of tissues sensitive to hormones, such as the prostate gland or the breast. When cancer begins to grow in the prostate or breast tissue, the cancer’s growth and rate of spreading can be caused by the patient’s own hormones. When this is the case, hormone production blocking drugs or drugs that change the methods used by the hormones, and/or removing the organs that create the hormones like the testicals or ovaries, are methods of combating cancer. Much like chemotherapy, hormone therapy is a systematic treatment method in that it can affect cancerous cells in many parts of the body.

Targeted Therapy

A targeted therapy is a therapy designed to only treat cancer cells and minimize the damage to healthy, normal cells. Cancer treatments which are able to “target” the cancer cells might provide the possibility of improving outcomes and reducing treatment-related side effects. Traditional cancer treatments, like radiation therapy and chemotherapy, are not able to tell the difference between healthy cells and cancer cells. Therefore, healthy cells are usually damaged during the cancer treatment process, resulting in negative side effects. Chemotherapy attacks cells that divide rapidly, the trademark of cancerous cells. But in the process, rapidly dividing healthy cells, such as the cells lining the GI tract and mouth and blood cells, are damaged as well. Radiation therapy destroys some healthy cells which happen to be in the radiation’s path or close to the treated area that has been infected by the cancer.

Advancements in radiation therapy techniques enable the reduction, but not the elimination of this damage. Treatment-related damage done to the patient’s healthy cells can lead to side effects or complications of the treatment. The side effects can be quite severe and have the capability to reduce the quality of life for the patient, compromise their ability to receive the entire treatment as prescribed, and in some cases even limiting the chances for optimal outcomes from the treatment.

Biological Therapy

Biological therapy is referred to by many terms, including immunologic therapy, immunotherapy, or biotherapy. Biological therapy is a type of treatment that uses the body’s immune system to facilitate the killing of cancer cells. Types of biological therapy include interferon, interleukin, monoclonal antibodies, colony stimulating factors (cytokines), and vaccines.

Personalized Cancer Care

A “one-size-fits-all” approach is no longer used in cancer treatment. Even with patients suffering from the same kind of cancer, the cancer’s behavior and response to treatment methods can have widely varying effects. Through investigating the potential reasons for these variations, researchers have started the process of providing more personalized treatment for cancer. It is rapidly becoming clear that the specific cancer cell and cancer patient characteristics have a huge impact on their initial prognosis and treatment outcomes. Factoring these specific characteristics into the patient’s treatment can make their cancer care more complicated, but it does provide the promise of an improved outcome.

The concept of aligning a certain treatment with a particular patient is not a new thought. For example, it has long been understood that hormonal therapy treatment for breast cancer is much more likely to be successful when the patient’s breast cancer has the receptors for progesterone and/or estrogen. Testing the cancer for these receptors is a standard part of a breast cancer clinical work-up. What is new is the speed that researchers are able to identify new tests, new tumor markers, and more targeted new drugs to make cancer treatment even more individualized. There are now tests that are able to assess the chances of a cancer’s response to certain drugs, chances of a cancer’s recurrence, and the existance of certain cancer targets which may be attacked by these new anti-cancer drugs which can directly target the individual cancer cells.