Navigation MenuPart I - Cancer Industry Overview:
Part II - Initial Diagnosis of Cancer: Part III - Cancer Therapy Options: Part IV - Nutrition for Cancer: Part V - More Cancer Resources: Part VI - Cancer Medical Terms: Part VII - Survivor Characteristics: Part VIII - Self-help Approaches: Part IX - Testimonials of Survivors: Part X - Forum for Patients: Part XI - What I would do: Part XII - Recent Developments: Part XIII - Other Cancer Info: |
Welcome to Guide to Cancer TreatmentPreamble: Mission Statement / ObjectiveTo create “in one location” a comprehensive resource guide for cancer patients to assist in the evaluation process before making critical treatment option decisions. Once diagnosed, cancer patients are frequently overwhelmed by the amount of information and treatment decisions that need to be made, with limited time and resources to evaluate what can be critical life saving decisions. Also, making wrong treatment decisions can often result in disqualification from what might later may be determined to be the right treatment option. It is with this understanding that this website attempts to provide a concise summary of the current trends in the cancer industry, resources readily available, and information that is deemed worthy of consideration before making treatment decisions, with the ultimate goal of achieving a higher probability of a cure or remission for the cancer patient.
Unfortunately, there is a wealth of books and websites relating to cancer that provide information that does not have any scientific basis or even anecdotal evidence of efficacy, some of which will be identified in this website. Thus, this site attempts to highlight those areas that have some basis for consideration in what is now commonly called “Integrative Cancer Care”. This approach integrates mainstream conventional cancer treatment with those complementary therapies shown to increase successful outcomes, not just improvements in tumor response rates, with quality of life issues taken into account. This website also highlights available services to customize treatment using “your” cancer cells rather than using clinical trial data that has been shown to provide favorable tumor response rates for “most” cancer patients with that type and stage of cancer, but not necessarily “yours”. While many healthcare issues do not require patient involvement in treatment decisions and afford the luxury of trying various treatment options, a cancer diagnosis often becomes the patient’s first encounter with a disease that can be life threatening and the treatment option decision becomes critical. Many cancer patients end up trying various treatment options attempting to find one that provides favorable results. Each attempt, if not successful, can have a negative impact on the cancer patients’ immune system, a critical factor in achieving a cancer cure or remission, as well as allowing the cancer additional time to mutate and metastasize. Many cancer survivors attribute their success by taking action to becoming better informed before choosing their treatment option following diagnosis. Providing key information to this end is the goal of this website. It is important to note that this website does not focus on alternative cancer care but rather encourages cancer patients to seek out the best “customized” and “integrative” cancer treatment available, particularly for late stage cancer diagnosis. These highlighted terms are described in detail in this website. For many early stage cancers, surgery, with “clear margins” indicated by post-op pathology, is frequently the best treatment option. However, it’s important to note that if the initial diagnosis fails to identify existing metastatic cancer, then the window of opportunity for performing “chemosensitivity testing” may be missed if cancer tissue is not properly preserved and tested at the time of surgery. This testing is described in detail in this website.  |