What Is Advanced Cancer?

Advanced cancer is cancer that has grown beyond the organ where it first started. Often times, it has spread throughout the body widely, which called metastatic cancer. However, advanced cancer is not always metastatic cancer. But sometimes metastatic cancer is considered as advanced cancer if it is can’t be removed and affecting a vital organ.

Usually, the term advanced cancer means that the cancer can’t be cured. But treatment can sometimes shrink the cancer, even if there is no cure. Some treatment can help relieve symptoms, and help you live longer. In some cases, some people can live many years with advanced cancer.

Cancer in every person is unique. Than the same cancer in someone else, your cancer may grow at a different rate and respond differently to treatments. When they first learn they have the disease, some people’s cancer may already be advanced cancer. Other people develop advanced cancer after years of treatment.

Usually in general, advanced cancer occurs after you have had cancer for some time and in stopping the growth of this cancer, treatment is no longer effective. But the control of symptoms often related to advanced cancer, like depression and pain, almost always continue to respond to treatment.

How Many People Get Advanced Cancer?

In the United States, more than half a million people will develop and die of advanced cancer each year. Over 70% of these people will be older than 65 years old. Although people who get cancer will live 5 years or longer, usually people with advanced cancer live less than a year.

Can Advanced Cancer Be Prevented?

At this time, the only sure way to prevent the growth or spread of a cancer is to find the cancer early enough and destroy it or remove it. But many people more likely to have cancer found after it has already spread. And some cancers may spread before they can be found, because these tests are not perfect. There are also many cancers that cannot be found early by any of the tests that are now available.

To keep cancer from spreading, researchers are looking for ways. Drugs are being studied that might block the enzymes through the walls of blood vessels that help cancer cells break holes. Other drugs block the formation of new blood vessels. Some patients are given drugs after surgery to kill cancer cells that might have broken away from the primary tumor.

How Is Advanced Cancer Found?

It’s hard to know who will develop advanced cancer or metastatic cancer. Some cancers are more likely to spread than others. One way is to compare how closely the cancer cells resemble normal cells, this called grade. The more normal the cells look, the less likely it is that the cancer will spread. Another way is related to the size of the tumor. Also, it is much more likely to spread to distant sites, if the cancer is found to have spread to nearby lymph nodes. Sometimes, this discovered after surgery if lymph nodes are removed and examined under the microscope.

Some advanced cancer types are advanced prostate cancer, advanced breast cancer, advanced cancer, advanced colon cancer, advanced lung cancer, advanced ovarian cancer, advanced liver cancer, advanced pancreatic cancer, advanced colorectal cancer, advanced cervical cancer, advanced bladder cancer, advanced kidney cancer, advanced gastric cancer, advanced stomach cancer, and advanced brain cancer.

Doctors aren’t always sure if a person’s cancer will spread, even when these things are known, or whether they already have advanced cancer. Your doctor will look at your history, most of the time, and give you a physical exam. You will have some imaging studies and blood tests. Putting all this information together, your doctor can often tell if you have advanced cancer.

Below are some of ways to find advanced cancer:

1. Signs and Symptoms
The most symptom is feeling tired or fatigued, and losing your energy. Most people with advanced cancer have a hard time doing everyday tasks. At some point, it gets so bad that they spend much of their time in bed. Another sign is Weight loss. Pain may go along with but not always. Shortness of breath is common with lung cancer.

2. Physical Exam
Doctors may find signs of problems caused by advanced cancer. These signs might include:
• fluid in your lungs or in your abdominal cavity
• tumor lumps on or within your body
• an enlarged liver

3. Blood Tests
Certain blood tests can point to advanced cancer. If the cancer has invaded the liver, test results of liver function are often very abnormal. Your cancer might produce a substance called a tumor marker. The level of these substances in the blood may be very high. There are many other tumor markers for other cancers.

4. Imaging Tests
- Chest x-ray: A chest x-ray can find tumors in your lungs or fluid in your chest.
- Computed tomography (CT): The CT scan is an x-ray procedure that produces detailed cross-sectional images of your body.
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI): MRI scans use radio waves and strong magnets instead of x-rays.
- Positron emission tomography (PET): PET uses a form of sugar (glucose) that contains a radioactive atom.
- Ultrasound: Ultrasound is the use of sound waves to make images of internal organs.
- Radionuclide bone scan: This procedure helps show whether a cancer has metastasized to bones.
- Biopsy: Often when an imaging test finds something that isn’t normal, the doctor will want be certain that it is cancer.

How Is Advanced Cancer Treated?

It is not likely to be cured but Advanced Cancer can often be controlled. The physical symptoms can almost always be well managed. The goal of treatment, at any stage of cancer, should be clear to both you and your family. You should know if the goal is to extend your life, cure your cancer or relieve symptoms. Because of some treatments used to cure cancer may also be used to relieve symptoms, this can sometimes be confusing.

If the cancer cannot be cured, some people believe that nothing more can be done. So they stop all treatment. There are even doctors who think this way. But radiation, chemotherapy cancer, surgery, and other treatments can often control symptoms.

Treatment choices for advanced cancer depend on where the cancer started and if and how much it has spread. As a general rule, cancer that has spread will need systemic therapy such as chemo cancer therapy or hormone therapy. Systemic therapy is treatment that is taken by mouth or injected into the blood to reach cancer cells throughout the entire body.

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Tags: advanced breast cancer, advanced breast cancer treatment, advanced cancer, advanced cancer treatment, advanced colon cancer, advanced colorectal cancer, advanced liver cancer, advanced lung cancer, advanced prostate cancer

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