Articles for patients and families facing cancer: how screening and diagnosis work, what staging means, how the main treatment types differ and how to prepare for appointments. General information; treatment decisions belong to your oncology team.
A candidate for CyberKnife is usually someone with a small, well-defined tumor, benign or cancerous, that imaging can outline clearly, often sitting near sensitive…
Brachytherapy for cervical cancer delivers radiation from a sealed source placed inside the uterus and vagina through a hollow applicator. Each session usually involves…
Neck dissection removes lymph nodes when cancer has spread to the neck or is likely to. A radical neck dissection takes all node groups…
On bone marrow transplant day, often called Day Zero, donated or previously collected blood-forming stem cells are given through a central line, much like…
Acute and chronic graft-versus-host disease are distinguished mainly by their clinical features, not just by timing. Acute GVHD usually appears within the first weeks…
People most often considered for proton therapy have a tumor sitting close to organs that tolerate radiation poorly, such as the brainstem, spinal cord,…
A chemo port is a small reservoir implanted under the skin of the chest and connected to a large vein; a PICC line is…
An autologous stem cell transplant returns a person's own previously collected blood-forming cells after high-dose treatment, while an allogeneic transplant uses cells from a…
After a total thyroidectomy for thyroid cancer, the body can no longer make thyroid hormone, so most people take a daily synthetic version of…
Lymphoma chemotherapy and some immunotherapies temporarily lower white cells, platelets and red cells, and the infection risk usually peaks about one to two weeks…
After a basal cell carcinoma excision, a stitched wound usually has a sealed surface within about two weeks, with surface sutures removed anywhere from…
Hot flashes and fatigue are among the most common side effects of cancer hormone therapy because these treatments lower or block estrogen or testosterone,…
Vulvar cancer treatment is planned by stage, which describes how deep the tumor has grown and whether it has reached lymph nodes or other…
Radiotherapy is usually chosen instead of surgery for skin cancer when an operation would be difficult, risky, or cosmetically costly: for example, in people…
Proton therapy side effects often peak in the first week or two after the final session because radiation damages the deep cell layers that…
After breast cancer treatment, follow-up usually means a clinical exam every three to six months for the first few years, then every six to…
The Whipple procedure, or pancreaticoduodenectomy, removes the head of the pancreas, the first part of the small intestine, the gallbladder, part of the bile…
Hormone therapy for cancer and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) use similar words but pull in opposite directions. Cancer hormone therapy blocks or lowers estrogen…
Choose which cookies you allow. Essential cookies are always on because the site cannot work without them.
