According to the Associated Press, two clinical trials have revealed that some cancer patients may safely abandon radiotherapy or chemotherapy after surgery to remove tumors, avoiding the harmful side effects and unnecessary costs of such medical procedures.
One study found that with a specific blood test, colon cancer patients may be able to avoid chemotherapy after surgery, while another found that some low-risk breast cancer patients may skip radiation after a lumpectomy.
The research was discussed during the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which concluded its operations in Chicago on Tuesday.
The study of colon cancer included 455 patients who had undergone surgery due to the spread of cancer in the colon wall. DNA of cancer.
When the cancer did not show any signs of persistence, the patients did not receive chemotherapy, while the doctors decided to give the remaining patients regular chemotherapy.
Dr. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. Stacey Cohen, a reviewer of colon cancer findings and not involved in research, said these findings allow clinicians to focus on patients who actually benefit from chemotherapy. They don’t need it. “
Dr Jane Day, of the Peter McCallum Cancer Center in Melbourne, Australia, said: “Patients who have not been diagnosed with cancer DNA after surgery are less likely to have recurrence of cancer, and chemotherapy is less likely to benefit these patients.”
According to a breast cancer study conducted in 500-year-old women, they had a common type of breast cancer at an early stage and had low levels of a protein called Ki67, which indicates the presence of fast-growing cancer.
After surgery, women were offered hormone-preventing pills to treat this type of cancer, but did not receive radiation therapy.
5 years later, the disease recurred in 10 women and resulted in one death. The researchers said the results were positive compared to the data from patients receiving radiation.
Dr. Timothy Whelan of McMaster University in Ontario, who led the study with the support of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society, said: ‘The benefits of radiation in this group are minimal compared to the side effects.
