Approach to Cancer Care: From Diagnosis to Treatments

Approach to Cancer Care
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Approach to Cancer Care
These days, approaches to cancer diagnosis and care have been improved through the numerous studies devoted to understanding the very nature of the disease. From delivering early diagnosis (even screening the probability to develop cancer) to state-of-the art technologies that aims to reduce the amount of cancer as much as possible, have gone a long way from the early methods which could be characterized as ‘relatively inefficient’. However, despite all the efforts dedicated into curing this dreaded disease, finding an actual cure that would even prevent recurrence and other complications are still not available, due to the overly complex nature of a tumor itself. Nonetheless, current diagnostic processes and methods dedicated to cure this offers great potentials. Thus, this article is aimed at studying the very nature of the cancer (in the general level) and assessing the current technologies, diagnostic techniques, and methodologies that are now being used throughout the world.
Diagnosis and Staging of Cancer
The first step in both cancer diagnosis and management is the Staging process. This process is very important due to the fact that it allows the doctor to assess the extent of the disease and helps in planning the next stages of your treatment CITATION Nat151 \l 1033 (National Cancer Institute, 2015). In Staging, the patient’s chances of survival is also assessed based on how much the tumor have metastasized and spread throughout the body. Basically, the main classifications to determine the stage of a cancer depends on the following criteria: (1) location of the tumor, (2) size, (3) cell type, (4) grade (probability of spreading throughout the body), and (4) its location and extent relative the body’s lymph nodes CITATION Nat151 \l 1033 (National Cancer Institute, 2015). More specifically, this process could be narrowed down into three parts: (1) The dimensions and the extent of the main tumor, (2) the amount of other lymph nodes which are affected, and (3) the degree of metastasis CITATION Nat151 \l 1033 (National Cancer Institute, 2015). Also known as the TNM method, this process of providing an assessment of the degree of one’s cancer offers a way for doctors and other health providers to communicate easily due to its unique way of labeling (e.g. T0N0M0 – Tumor cannot be found; Nearby lymph nodes are not affected; Cancer is localized).
Aside from the two types of staging methods stated above, Cancer could also be staged in by grouping them into five categories based on its location. The five main categories are; (1) In situ, (2) Localized, (3) Regional, (4) Distant, and (5) Unknown CITATION Nat151 \l 1033 (National Cancer Institute, 2015). The first category – In situ – refers to the presence of abnormal cells, but the absence of characteristics that signifies spreading in different parts of the body. The second category – localized – also lacks the characteristics that shows that the cancer have spread, but with a presence of a tumor. The third category – regional – is a more advanced stage of cancer, since in this case, the cancer have alre...