Cancer Treatment Options Forum - January 14th, 2011 - 6 Comments
stage 4 cancer. chemo but no radiation. why?
My dad has stage 4 esophageal cancer. he has 3 tumors in his esophagus and it has spread to further lymph nodes but not to any other organs. He was told that he would undergo chemo but not radiation. What would the reason be for holding off on radiation treatment.
No radiation because there are so many vital organs in the area of the esophagus. The lungs, heart and pancreas are all in that area. Radiation would damage them too much. If the chemo does it’s job and shrinks the tumors, it will buy him some time… bearing in mind that the treatment is often as bad as or worse than the disease.
My heart goes out to you and your family. I pray for your comfort and your dad’s, and also your peace of mind. Be with him as much as you can. If he has the strength, make videos of him telling you about his life, love him and let him go when it’s time.
Ever cancer is different, every case is different!
Most people don’t get radiation actually. They just get chemo.
If the chemo works then why bother going through the added struggles and side-effects of radiation? Also if his outlook doesn’t look too good then they might do just chemo to spare him the bad side effects of it.
because the chemo could shrink the tumors to the point where he goes into remission and the radiation probably wont kill the tumors. this is what i am going through and I will never be cancer free but remission is the best i will get. and you can be in remission for a long time. so your father can live to an old age if he does the chemo and gets checked regularly and he will probably have to go through chemo again at some point in the future
This doesn’t make sense and it is something you should discuss with his oncologist. Chemo alone does not do much of anything for esophageal cancers.
Can be one of two reasons. 1, Some cancers, like Osteosarcoma are immune to radiation, meaning even the highest doses of radiation to possibly give a patient wont even affect it. 2. Stage 4 cancer means wide spread cancer, radiation usually benefits localized cancer or cancer where all of the existing tumors can be seen on Tomography. For example, since all esophagus cancers are Carcinomas, cancers that arise from Epithelial tissue, small cells of it could be hiding in his body in other places. Thats one of the few good things about chemotherapy is that its a systemic treatment so all cancer cells are targeted in your body. If they were only to give radiation to the visible tumors, he wouldn’t get the full benefit of it because they may not be treating all the cancer cells.
Often, when deemed unnecessary, physicians won’t suggest radiation therapy to patients that aren’t elderly, because the radiation exposure may cause you to further develop cancer later in life.
So if your treating physician suggests that radiation therapy is unnecessary, take his advice.
Chances are that he believes your dad will make a recovery without it, and would want to spare him the added risk of relapsing or developing any other form of cancer later in life.
Good luck, and I hope he makes a swift and complete recovery!