Treatment plans under palliative care are customized to meet each patient's unique requirements and preferences, with an emphasis on achieving the best possible results while ensuring maximum comfort.
Dr Pushkar Ingle, Consultant Radiation Oncology, Fortis Hospital Mulund, shares the role of radiotherapy for end-stage cancer patients
Each cancer occurs at different stages and treatment has its own challenges. Cancer treatment is normally of three types.
• OncoSurgery: In this, the surgeon removes cancerous tissues.
• Medical Oncology: It can be given before surgery to reduce the extent of the disease and make surgery feasible or after surgery to reduce the chances of cancer recurrence. It plays an important role when cancer spreads to different organs to control the spread of the disease.
• Radiation oncology: This treatment can be administered with the intention of curing the patient of cancer. It may be considered after surgery to prevent local recurrence of the disease by killing the microscopic disease cells that remain. It may also be given before surgery to reduce the extent of the disease and make surgery more feasible.
The important issue is therapy for patients with late-stage cancer. These patients suffer from diseases that are incurable and may have spread to different areas of the body causing multiple problems. Symptoms of late-stage cancer can vary widely depending on the type and location of cancer, but often include severe pain, fatigue, loss of appetite, difficulty breathing, and affect quality of life. These are the patients who deserve palliative care, which is an interdisciplinary care approach aimed at optimizing quality of life and mitigating suffering among people with serious, complex and often terminal illnesses.
As late-stage cancer becomes more prevalent, radiation therapy, once considered a curative intervention, becomes a powerful palliative strategy. By carefully targeting tumors or metastases, it relieves symptoms that interfere with patients' daily lives and improves their quality of life.
For example, if cancer has spread to the bones, it can weaken them and make them susceptible to fractures. It can also cause intense pain in areas that deprive patients of any movement and weaken them. Radiation therapy is a short-term, painless treatment that helps reduce swelling and further damage. Radiotherapy works wonders in these cases, as it targets the tumor cells and reduces the burden at that site.
Patients with late-stage cancer may also have difficulty breathing. This could probably be due to tumor cells in the lungs putting pressure on the breathing tubes. This makes the patient bedridden and dependent on oxygen support. Palliative radiotherapy works very helpful in this case. It destroys the pathological cells of the lesion, reducing its size and, therefore, reducing breathing difficulty. Patients' comfort increases and they can perform normal tasks without respiratory problems.
There are high chances of developing tumor cells in the brain of advanced stage cancer patients.
This can cause fatigue, epilepsy, weakness, malaise and can affect normal thinking patterns. Radiation works here as a palliative treatment by controlling the disease and preventing its progression in the body.
Treatment plans under palliative care are customized to meet each patient's unique requirements and preferences, with an emphasis on achieving the best possible results while ensuring maximum comfort. In the context of end-stage cancer, radiation therapy represents the essence of patient-centered care, whether through careful selection of radiation targets or modification of treatment parameters to reduce side effects.
