How to rationalize your treatment plan

I. Arrangement should be reasonable After fully weighing the situation between positive and evil, and between local and disseminated, it is extremely important to develop a reasonable and planned comprehensive treatment plan, which requires full discussion and consultation through multidisciplinary physicians. 1. Different treatment measures are chosen for different tumors: for some tumors, such as skin cancer, local control is relatively the main problem, and various local treatment methods including surgical excision, radiotherapy or chemotherapy (such as fluorouracil, colchicine ointment, skin cancer net, etc.) can cure them, so that there is no need to add other treatments, such as extended excision or prophylactic irradiation. In another case, such as choriocapillary epithelial carcinoma, osteosarcoma, small cell lung cancer, etc., the possibility of distant dissemination cannot be eliminated even though the resection or irradiation is expanded as much as possible, therefore, necessary systemic measures must be taken to achieve the purpose of eradication. There are also some tumors, such as multiple myeloma, leukemia and certain malignant lymphomas, most of which are already systemic at the time of diagnosis, so chemotherapy is the treatment of choice. And some tumors with local recurrence as the main problem, such as central nervous system tumors, head and neck cancer, etc. adjuvant radiotherapy can improve the cure rate of surgical treatment to some extent. 2.The same kind of tumor, according to its different developmental stages and tendency, takes different treatment methods. This is mainly decided according to which one is the most likely to confine or spread the tumor. For example, breast cancer should not be operated at the rapid development stage, but should be treated with radiotherapy or chemotherapy first, and then operated after the tumor is relatively stable; most early stage cancers can be cured by surgery alone, and excessive radiotherapy is harmful; some advanced rectal and ovarian cancers can be cured by surgery if they are controlled to a certain extent by chemotherapy or radiotherapy. On the other hand, from the perspective of immunology, the rapid development of tumor indicates that the immunity of the body is in a suppressed and “paralyzed” state, so it is undoubtedly easy to spread after surgery, and must be treated by other treatments first and then operated after the tumor is stabilized, so the chance of spread will be greatly reduced. 1.Limited tumor: Generally, surgery is first, then radiotherapy and chemotherapy are added according to the surgery. Breast cancer is a successful example. Generally speaking, patients with lymph node metastasis should be irradiated prophylactically first (such as supraclavicular and internal breast area), and also need adjuvant chemotherapy; T1 and T2 patients without lymph node metastasis, if there is a tendency of dissemination (such as young, fast development, low differentiation in pathological examination, lymphatic vessels or blood vessels with tumor thrombus, poor response of peri-cancerous cells, etc.), postoperative chemotherapy should also be given to improve the cure rate, while the patient’s postoperative life quality of life after surgery is also improved. 2. Locally advanced tumors or tumors with regional metastasis: radiotherapy can be chosen first, and then surgery can be performed later. For some patients with locally advanced stage but no distant metastasis, a small combination of surgery and radiotherapy can often achieve good curative effect and better quality of life. In recent years, some people have tried to treat advanced breast cancer patients with chemotherapy first and then surgery after the limitation, followed by radiotherapy or chemotherapy according to the situation after surgery, which has improved the cure rate to a considerable extent. Treatment with tamoxifen (triamcinolone acetonide) after surgery for receptor-positive breast cancer of all stages not only improves the cure rate but also reduces the chance of contralateral breast cancer. Some squamous lung cancer may be accompanied by pulmonary atelectasis and infection, or even with swollen lymph nodes in the hilum or mediastinum, such patients can be treated with radiation therapy first to make the trachea open and drainage improve, and then operate after the pneumonia is absorbed. According to experience, enlarged mediastinal lymph nodes in such patients do not necessarily mean metastasis, because lung inflammation can also cause lymph node inflammation and enlargement, and a few patients can be cured by irradiation and chemotherapy of the mediastinal lymph node area after surgery according to the situation. Currently, prior chemotherapy is highly valued and represents a trend to some extent. Although osteosarcoma can be removed locally by amputation, most scholars advocate preoperative chemotherapy first and then surgery later, which can significantly increase the cure rate. 3.Transforming inoperable patients into operable ones through radiotherapy: Adding surgery after chemotherapy can improve the cure rate, probably due to: (1) removing those drug-resistant tumor cells to reduce recurrence; (2) for mixed cancers, removing other components that may exist to reduce the chance of recurrence; (3) reducing post-radiotherapy radiation pulmonary fibrosis. (4) Arrangement of radiotherapy for inoperable patients: Because of the vascular occlusion caused by fibrosis after radiotherapy makes it difficult for chemotherapy drugs to enter, most scholars advocate chemotherapy first, or chemotherapy and radiotherapy simultaneously. However, in some cases, such as superior vena cava compression, intracranial metastasis and bone metastasis, radiotherapy can be given first in order to relieve the disease as soon as possible.