Metastatic Disease

Treating metastatic disease (cancer) is vastly different than treating presumed residual disease in the adjuvant, post-op, newly-diagnosed patient setting. The realistic goal of adjuvant chemo is to rid the patient of the disease. The realistic goal in treating metastatic disease is to beat it back for as long as you can. These goals ARE different. In treating metastatic disease, a principle is to not make the treatment worse than the disease, thus good treatment becomes "finesse"...the use of a series of hormonals or low, frequent doses of chemo which enable you to take it more often. For instance, a "cure" for testicular cancer requires deliberate and intense drug therapy and the determination that a cure is the reasonable goal.

Close Window