United States: Doctors at the World Cancer Conference have said that the therapies for three types of cancer should be reduced in order to improve the patient’s quality of life without further harm.
More about the news
The newly suggested process often amounts to questions contained within the broad query of whether or not ‘less is more’ – less surgery, less chemotherapy, or less radiation – enhances survival and increases patients‘ quality of life.
The most recent studies were carried out among ovarian and esophageal cancer patients and Hodgkin lymphoma survivors.
Thirsty years ago, there was a time when cancer research ideas involved doing more, not less.
For example, women with metastatic breast disease were given fatal doses of cancer and toxicity with mega chemotherapeutic doses and bone marrow transplantation.
The approach did not have a better result than chemotherapy, and patients reacted negatively to it.
What more have the experts to say?
In order to optimize cancer care, the resaerchers are querying “Do we need all that treatment that we have used in the past?”
Dr. Tatjana Kolevska, medical director for the Kaiser Permanente National Cancer Excellence Program, who was not involved in the new research, said it is a question “that should be asked over and over again,” the New York Post reported.
More often, less time is spent on drugs owing to an improved variety of drugs.
Dr. William G. Nelson of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was also not involved in the new research, said, “The good news is that cancer treatment is not only becoming more effective, it’s becoming easier to tolerate and associated with less short-term and long-term complications.”
Following are the highlights of trends discussed at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago:
About Ovarian Cancer
French researchers looked at patients who had undergone surgery for the advanced stages of ovarian cancer and said it’s safer to refrain from resecting apparently healthy lymph nodes.
The study compared the result of the 379 patients – 190 patients had their lymph nodes taken out and 190 did not have this procedure.
No significant difference in the lifespan of the patients was noted, and patients who underwent less extreme surgery, especially in the early years of the follow up, had fewer complications, including the likelihood of requiring a blood transfusion.
The funding for this research was from the National Institute of Cancer in France.
About Esophageal Cancer
This study was done in Germany and involved 438 participants who had a specific type of esophageal cancer, which is treatable by surgery.
Half got a standard regimen of treatment that involved chemotherapy and an operation on the esophagus”, the tube that transports food from the throat to the stomach, the New York Post reported.
Half received another more performing treatment that also consists of radiation as well. Each of the techniques is widely known and used across the profession. They may also vary depending on the place a patient gets treated.
If chemo and surgery were given, 57 percent of patients lived for three years, while 51 percent of those who also received radiation and chemo lived for the same period. The survey was sponsored by the German Research Foundation.
About Hodgkin lymphoma
A research work comparing two chemotherapeutic regimens for the management of advanced Hodgkin lymphoma was conducted, and this study showed that less extended chemotherapy was relatively more beneficial for the type of blood cancer and also had minimal side effects as compared to the other more comprehensive chemotherapy treatment plans.
By the end of four years, the milder chemo effectively managed the disease in 94 percent of the patients as opposed to 91 percent of the patients who were under the stricter chemo.
The trial involved 1482 patients across nine different countries – Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Australia and New Zealand and was funded by Takeda Oncology, the manufacturers of one of the drugs used in the clinical gentler chemotherapy that was explored in the trial.