Cancer therapy
Modern cancer therapy is in general multidisciplinary, involving coordination between surgeons, oncologists, radiation oncologists, reconstructive surgeons, pathologists, radiologists, and primary care physicians.
When considering if and how to treat a cancer, it’s important to take these things into consideration:
- Histopathological diagnosis (typing, grading)
- Tumour localisation
- Staging (TNM)
- Risk analysis
The decision to treat and how to treat a cancer should be individualised based on each patient.
See also surgical oncology and palliative surgery.
Neoadjuvant and adjuvant therapy
Neoadjuvant therapy is radio and/or chemotherapy given before surgery. Adjuvant therapy is radio and/or chemotherapy given after surgery. For some cancers clinical studies have established that neoadjuvant and/or adjuvant therapy is beneficial and increases survival or chance of cure.
In some cases, postoperative therapy is only indicated if certain features of the tumour are discovered during surgery (during pathological staging), like
- Incomplete (R1, R2) surgical resection
- Spread to lymph nodes
- Certain mutations
- Very deep invasion
- Etc.
These are features which are associated with high risk of recurrence or poor prognosis.