There are several treatments for cancer which can manage and even kill cancer cells, allowing the patient to make a come back to normal life after a course of treatment. Even then a lot of care has to be taken in administering these therapies as they may cause severe side effects and health problems from them.

Chemotherapy

They are strong medications that keep cancer from spreading and slow its progress while long term therapy can kill the cancer cells. Side effects of chemotherapy are because the medicine destroys the cells in the body that are growing quickly including ones in the mouth, digestive system, hair follicles and the blood.

There are various types of medications and the doctor chooses the best one suited to a patient. The medication can be a pill, some cream to rub into the skin, an injection or IV that can be taken in a hospital.

External Radiation

The External Beam Radiation is a treatment that attacks cancer cells using high-energy proton particles or waves. The particles help kill or damage cells in a particular area and stop its growth. Since the machine is outside the body it is called external beam.

Internal Radiation

It is called as brachytherapy, it is simply putting radioactive implants the size of a grain of rice inside a patient’s body exactly where the cancer cells or tumour is there. The radiation from the implant kills the cancer cells. The only problem being that the patient may become radioactive for the period of treatment and will have to be isolated.

Surgery

Caner is commonly treated with surgery, since it works the best to remove solid tumour in an area. Surgery cannot treat cancer that has spread to other parts of the body or which is in the blood like leukaemia. The surgeon removes the cancerous tumour and sometimes the lymph nodes and tissues are taken out for testing.

Other surgeries

Minimally Invasive Surgery: Instead of a large cut on the body as in an open surgery the MIS procedure uses smaller incisions. Some tubes with camera are inserted through the incisions and the surgeon uses the visuals transmitted by the cameras to operate the tumour. This is called a laparoscopic surgery.

Cryosurgery: Cold nitrogen or argon gas is used to freeze off abnormal tissues and separate it from the body. Used for many skin, eye are cervical cancers.

Photodynamic Surgery: This is a laparoscopic surgery where certain medications are placed directly near the cancer growth. Then light activates the medicines and kills cancer cells.

Laser Surgery: Strong laser beams are used to cut into the skin and directed for destroying cancer cells in sensitive and small areas. Lasers are also sometimes used to shrink tumours.

Stem Cell Therapy

Stem cells are those cells in the blood stream and bone marrow that haven’t reached their full maturity. A surgeon uses these stem cells to replace cells in your bone marrow, replacing those cells destroyed by other treatments. Stem cell is transfused just like blood transfusion.

Targeted therapy to kill specific cells or cut off blood supply to cancer cells, hormone therapy, gene therapy and immunotherapy or biotherapy where the immune system is induced to fight cancer are also used successfully depending on particular case.