Our Cancer Questions section is designed to address the concerns most commonly faced by those affected by cancer, as well as the unique, nuanced questions that often go unanswered. Each page in this section is curated by medical professionals to provide reliable and easy-to-understand information.
Click on any of the topics below to explore detailed answers to commonly asked questions that you may have. Each page is carefully written to provide insights that empower you to make informed decisions about your care or the care of a loved one.
If you don’t find the answer to your specific question, feel free to contact us to suggest a topic. We are committed to expanding this section to meet the needs of our community.
Cancer is the uncontrollable growth of cells. Cells are the basic building blocks of all living organisms.
There are over 10 trillion cells in the human body. Normal cells have an orderly life cycle. They divide and
multiply only when they need to and they die when they are damaged or no longer function properly. Cancer
cells lose the ability to control their growth. They divide rapidly, creating new cancer cells, and do not
die, even when they are damaged.
A caregiver is usually a close relative of a cancer patient who gives them physical assistance and emotional
support throughout treatment. The caregiver role begins once cancer or treatments begin to interfere with the
patient's daily life. Caregivers have many responsibilities and are a key member of the healthcare team.
As a patient, you're entitled to ask your health care providers anything. In that sense, there are no bad
questions. But some questions will help you get more out of your interaction with your health care providers
than others. This advice comes from my experience as a medical oncologist and a cancer survivor. Before asking
your questions, remember that you're dealing with a human being. Doctors are not gods or saints. We try to
remain professional, but just like anyone else, we prefer to deal with those who are pleasant.
A healthy doctor-patient relationship is a very important part of cancer care. Good communication between
doctors, patients, and caregivers helps all parties build a trusting relationship and openly share information
and feelings with one another. Patients may experience many difficult thoughts and emotions when they receive
their diagnosis, and it may be hard for them to make important decisions about treatment. Good communication
helps the patient be more well-informed and feel more at ease when making these decisions.
A cancer survivor is any living person who has ever been diagnosed with cancer. Someone is known as a cancer
survivor from their initial diagnosis to the end of their life. Due to advances in medicine, cancer patients
are surviving longer and leading fuller lives both during and after treatment. There are about 14 million
cancer survivors living in the United States, and about 75% of American families have at least one family
member who has been diagnosed with cancer.
In medieval times, the word "hospice" referred to monasteries and convents where travelers could find lodging
and comfort along their journey. Many times, these travelers were ill and spent their final days being cared
for by nuns and monks. Today, hospice is a similar concept of care focused on improving the quality of life of
terminally ill cancer patients, allowing them to live out their final days in comfort and dignity.
Palliative care is any form of treatment given to cancer patients to relieve symptoms and side effects of the
disease and improve quality of life. The goal of palliative care is not to cure the disease, but to make the
patient as comfortable as possible throughout their journey with cancer. Palliative care addresses the
patient's physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, and also helps with more practical issues.
Pain is an important part of your body's natural defense system. Pain is your body's way of warning you of
something that might hurt or telling you that it is injured in some way. For example, the pain you feel when
you touch a hot stove warns you to pull your hand away to avoid getting burned. The pain you feel if you break
your leg prevents you from walking around or using your leg so that it can properly heal.
Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to treat rapidly growing cancer cells in an effort to destroy them. These
drugs target all rapidly growing cells in order to eliminate the cancer, so they can also destroy healthy
cells, including those in the blood, mouth, throat, stomach, and hair. This damage to healthy cells is
responsible for most of chemotherapy's side effects. Most of the side effects of chemotherapy are short term,
and rarely last much longer than treatment.
Radiation therapy uses waves of high energy rays or particles to kill cancer cells. Doctors give radiation
therapy to shrink the tumor before surgery and eliminate any traces of cancer left after surgery. In external
beam radiation, a large machine aims radiation at your tumor from outside the body. External beam radiation is
usually administered five days a week for approximately five to seven weeks.
You have finished your cancer treatments and your doctor can no longer find any cancer cells in your body.
Your doctor tells you that your cancer is in remission, meaning your treatment was successful and the cancer
is gone. You may feel great for having survived cancer or you may still be physically and emotionally
exhausted from treatment.
The patient's own stem-cells are harvested before chemotherapy and/or radiation and reinfused into their
bloodstream after treatment. Patients who undergo autologous transplants have a lower risk of infection
because their immune system tends to recover more rapidly when receiving their own stem cells. Autologous
transplants may carry some (usually quite low) risk of graft rejection (i.e. the patient’s own stem cells fail
to “take”).
Stem cells are taken from a matched donor whose human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) match the patient's. It is
important to find a good match to prevent graft rejection, where the patient’s own immune system rejects the
transplanted stem cells. It is also important to find a good match to prevent graft-versus-host-disease
(GVHD), where the donor’s immune system rejects the patient's own body systems.
Genomic testing refers to new tests that are available to obtain information about the molecular
characteristics of a tumor. These tests can identify specific genetic changes in the DNA of cells that cause
the malignant cells to grow and multiply. By identifying the genetic alterations in the DNA of your cancer
cells, doctors can recommend new targeted therapies that attack the specific mutations causing your cancer
growth.
Proton therapy is an advanced new type of radiation therapy that uses “protons” rather than X-ray “photons” to
deliver radiation to the tumor. Proton therapy can target tumors much more precisely and with higher amounts
of radiation than conventional radiotherapy, resulting in less damage to healthy tissue and fewer
side-effects.
Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to target rapidly growing cells in an effort to destroy cancer cells.
Chemotherapy drugs kill healthy cells as well as cancer cells. The drug is referred to as systemic, since it
travels through the entire body. Chemotherapy medications may be given through the vein (intravenously) or by
mouth (orally).
Anemia is a common side effect of many chemotherapy treatments and affects seven out of ten people during
their treatment. Anemia is a condition in which the body does not make enough healthy red blood cells. Red
blood cells are produced in the bone marrow and carry oxygen throughout the body. When your red blood cells
are very low, your organs and body tissues don't get enough oxygen and can't function properly.
Neutropenia is a common side effect for many chemotherapy treatments. As many as one in three patients
experience neutropenia during their treatments. Neutropenia is a shortage of neutrophils, a specific type of
white blood cell that destroys bacteria and protects you from infection and disease. White blood cells play an
important part in preventing infections. Neutropenia can increase your risk for infection, because there are
not enough bacteria fighting cells in your body. Your doctor will closely monitor your condition with routine
blood tests and can prescribe medication to increase your white blood cells if needed.
Doctors use laboratory tests to diagnose cancer, assess its severity, and monitor treatment progress and side
effects. A laboratory test is a procedure in which a sample of a bodily fluid (i.e. blood, urine, mucus) or
tissue (i.e. tumor sample, lymph node, bone marrow) is examined under a microscope in a laboratory. Laboratory
tests can provide important information about a patient’s general health and organ function, and may be used
for any of the following reasons.
Tumor markers are substances that can be found in higher than normal amounts in a person's blood, urine, or
bodily tissues when they have a specific type of cancer. Some substances are tumor markers for a specific
cancer, while others are tumor markers for multiple cancers. Tumor markers can be used in different ways,
depending on the specific type of cancer. Most tumor markers can be used to monitor the extent of the disease
and the patient’s response to treatment. Some tumor markers can also be used to detect a cancer recurrence, to
give doctors an idea of the prognosis (chance of recovery), to help doctors with treatment-planning, to
confirm a diagnosis (in conjunction with other tests), and/or to screen for cancer in undiagnosed individuals.
Although nausea and vomiting commonly occur together, they are separate conditions. Nausea is an unpleasant
wavelike feeling in the back of the throat or stomach that may or may not result in vomiting. Vomiting is the
forceful emptying of the contents of the stomach through the mouth.
Peripheral neuropathy is numbness and tingling in the hands and feet as a result of peripheral nerve damage
from cancer treatment. Damage to peripheral nerve cells, the cells responsible for sensation that carry
information from the brain to other parts of the body, leads to peripheral neuropathy.
Staging refers to the extent of your cancer, such as how large the tumor is, and if it has spread. A cancer is
always referred to by the stage it was given at diagnosis, even if it gets worse or spreads. Your doctor may
stage your cancer using one or a combination of cancer staging systems.
Copyright © 2025 CMedEd.com
