Yes, cancer is curable but not always.
By the term cured one means that cancer has gone away, and it will not come back again.According to the study, your doctor is the best person who knows how quickly certain cancers tend to come back if they are going to. For e.g. if testicular cancer is going then it tends to come back within three years of the period, however, tendency of breast cancer to come back is 15 or 20 years later.
With the advancement in medical science, the people are now living longer after cancer, often with a good quality of life.
How likely is Cancer Curable?
Whether your cancer can be cured or not depends on various factors such as follows:
- Cancer Type: The type of cancer you have will identify that it will be curable or not as some of the cancers are easy to cure than others.
- Stage of Cancer: Cancer stage is also a major factor which identifies that your cancer is curable or not, in general, the earlier a cancer is found, the higher are the chance to cure cancer.
- Spread of Cancer: Your doctor will identify whether your cancer has spread and if yes, then how much it has been spread. If your cancer hasn’t spread is usually easy to cure.
- Age: Your age and your health condition will identify whether your cancer can be curable or not. For e.g., there is a risk to perform surgery, in case, you are older in age or you have a poor health condition.
Every patient is different and your doctor is the best person to whom you need to talk about your cancer, and your chances of a cure.
What happens if the cancer is not cured and what is remission?
Although cancer can’t always be cured, it can always be treated.
The cancer treatments may give patient extra months or years to live a good quality of life. The treatments can also relieve the symptoms which have been caused by cancer such as pain. Treatment for cancer cannot always be cured it is often called palliative care which means it eliminates all traces of cancer from the body and ensures it won’t come back.
Remission can be one of the below two things.
a) If cancer goes away after the treatment and your doctor found no longer any signs or symptoms of cancer then it is known as complete remission, but it is not same as a cure, because there may be still cancer cells in your body which your doctor is unable to see. This is too early to talk about a cure.
b) Another is partial remission which means that cancer has shrunk in your body. According to study, partial remission is not a cure, because the cancer is still there in your body.
Types of Treatments to Cure Cancer
The following are some of the common treatments to cure cancer and these are:
a) Immunotherapy: Cancer immunotherapy is a type of treatment which helps the immune system of your body to fight against cancer cells.
The immune system of human body is made up of various organs, cells, and tissues which help the body fight off foreign invaders which include bacteria, viruses, and parasites, however, cancer cells are not foreign invaders and your immune system may need some help in identifying them.
b) Vaccines: There are some vaccines which can prevent cancer such as human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine protects you against many types of HPV that can cause cervical cancer. To treat the advanced prostate cancer which has not to respond to any other treatment can be cured by the vaccine which is Sipuleucel-T.
c) Hormone therapy: Your body naturally produces hormones and these hormones act as messengers to the tissues and cells of your body. They help to regulate many of the body’s functions.
The doctors at the hospitals under We Care India perform the hormone therapy by using a medication which blocks the production of hormones. Some cancers are sensitive to the levels of specific hormones and changes in these levels can affect the survival and growth of these cancer cells. In such condition, your doctor will block the amount of a necessary hormone which can slow down the growth of these types of cancers.
Generally, the doctors at the hospitals under We Care India use the hormone therapy to treat breast cancer, prostate cancer, and uterine cancer.
