Liu Jie, Department of Oncology, Guang’anmen Hospital, China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine (CATCM) Once diagnosed with cancer, many patients and their families need to begin to understand some of the knowledge related to cancer treatment, in addition to a psychological stage of accepting the fact of the disease. You need to understand that in such a situation, no matter how strong you are, you don’t need to bear it alone anymore. Medical science has not solved all the problems of cancer treatment, but it has made a lot of achievements that can help you “make peace with cancer” to a certain extent. Therefore, patients do not have to fight cancer alone. Most of the cancer diagnosis is made through various examinations to obtain some cells or tissues from the primary or metastatic site of the tumor, and then a pathological diagnosis is made. A few cancers cannot be diagnosed pathologically, so it is necessary to rely on CT and other imaging, hematological indexes and other laboratory tests, combined with the clinical manifestations, and then the doctor will make a judgment in a comprehensive manner. When the diagnosis of cancer is very clear, the question of what method of treatment to use is faced. Patients and their families often experience running to many hospitals and consulting many specialists. Below we try to clarify our thoughts to see if we can be less blind and more rational in the process of seeking treatment, less absolute good and bad, and more weighing of the advantages and disadvantages. The first thing we need to know is that cancer is currently considered to be caused by a combination of many reasons, so cancer treatment should also be multi-faceted, a variety of means to work together, do not gullibly believe in a certain drug or a prescription. Please go to regular hospitals to see oncologists, and Chinese medicine doctors should also be Chinese medicine oncologists in regular hospitals. The second point is that we have to understand that cancer is a local manifestation of systemic disease, therefore, from this aspect, the treatment can be roughly divided into two categories, one is the treatment for localized cancer foci, for example, surgery, radiotherapy, intervention, radiofrequency, etc.; the other one is the treatment for the whole body, for example, chemotherapy, immunotherapy, biotherapy, etc. TCM treatment is also often aimed at these two aspects. Then, whether only localized treatment is needed, or localized treatment + systemic treatment, or only systemic treatment can be done, we need to continue with the third point. The third point is that we have to see whether the disease diagnosed by the doctor to us is early or advanced, and whether there is a chance of radical treatment. Generally speaking, relatively early stage cancers, because the lesions are relatively confined and have not spread and metastasized to other parts of the body, tend to have a chance of being radically cured, and the means of treatment for radical treatment include surgery, radiotherapy, and so on. Therefore, when you learn that the cancer is detected at an early stage, please consult a surgical oncologist, who will give you treatment suggestions by taking into consideration factors such as the size and location of the tumor as well as the patient’s physical condition. Surgery has evolved to the present day, and in addition to the traditional means of scalpel, there are more extensions, such as gamma knife and other invisible “scalpel”. When surgery is not available, radiotherapists can also be consulted to see if radiotherapy is suitable. At the same time, we should also recognize that cancer is easy to spread and metastasize, and some tiny metastases are difficult to be found by current diagnostic methods. Unless the very early patients have been treated by surgery to remove the local foci, they generally need to be combined with systemic therapies such as chemotherapy and traditional Chinese medicine to continue to treat and prevent the recurrence of cancer and metastasis. Fourthly, when the cancer is found relatively late, there is no condition for radical treatment, or the surgery is done for early stage cancer patients, then you need to consult medical oncologists and Chinese medicine oncologists, who will propose radiotherapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, Chinese medicine and other suggestions and treatment plans to you. Therefore, surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, radiotherapists, interventional oncologists, traditional Chinese medicine oncologists, and oncology rehabilitation doctors can form a team together with you to fight with cancer and work out the battle route together, so please cancer patients and their families to join in more actively and rationally, and let’s work hard for our common battle goal. We sincerely hope that we can make fewer sacrifices and win the greatest victory!