Advance Cancer In Ovarian TreatmentBeing diagnosed with advanced stage ovarian cancer, usually either stage 3 or 4 is devastating news to hear from anyone, especially your doctor. Once they tell you the 5 year survival rates, you may become quite inconsolable. Yet, you should know that these statistics are based on approximately a decade ago, and since then cancer treatment and scientific research has come a long way. Although it is not desirable to find out you have ovarian cancer that has progressed substantially, it is not a death sentence and with the right doctors and outlook you can beat it. One of the worst things you can do now is to give up the battle before you even begin the fight. You cannot know how far the cancer has spread until your doctor performs surgery to remove the cancerous growths inside your ovaries (either a tumor or cyst). It is at this point that they can see how far the cancer has spread, and will choose to remove the ovaries as well, or complete a partial or full hysterectomy. If the cancer is advanced, then it is considered to have spread past these areas and is either along the intestines or liver or father to outside the abdomen and actually into the intestines or liver. At this point, if you have ovarian cancer that has spread this far, you have probably already had a complete hysterectomy and the tissues around the lymph nodes and other tissues in the pelvis and intestines have been removed. At this point, the next stage of treatment to address your advanced ovarian cancer will include more surgery to remove as much as the cancer from the abdomen organs as best as possible. There are some areas that cannot be removed because your body will not continue to function, but every area that can be taken out will be. The final treatment option for advanced ovarian cancer is combination chemotherapy. This means that you will have to undergo chemotherapy as well as intense radiation therapy. Radiation therapy is similar to chemotherapy in that it destroys cancer though ultraviolet rays, but radiation uses high level x-rays to combat and destroy cancer cells. Radiation therapy may be harder on your body, but if it is effective you will have an overall better survival rate since you will kill more of the cancer cells that cannot be surgically removed. |