A Guide to Good Health

Diagnosed With Bone Cancer? Know Your Options

If you have been diagnosed with bone cancer, whether it is a cancer that has started in your bones or metastasized into them, you may find yourself overwhelmed with the diagnosis. However, while it is understandable that you may feel overwhelmed, it is important to learn as much as possible about your treatment options right away. The sooner you start treatment for your bone cancer, the better the outcomes may be. Get to know some of the treatment options available for bone cancer. Then, you can be sure to talk to the oncologist right away about your course of treatment going forward. 

Surgery

One of the treatment options available for bone cancer is surgery to remove the tumor from the bone. This can sometimes mean that a limb needs to be amputated or could just mean that a portion of a bone needs to be removed to get rid of the tumor. 

Of course, if you have metastatic bone cancer and you have several tumors throughout the body, surgery may not be the right option for you. The oncologist may still recommend surgery to get rid of the largest or most aggressive tumors, depending on where they are and the effects they are having on your body. 

Cryosurgery is also an option for bone cancer. This surgery freezes the tumor, destroying it and the cancer cells inside in the process. 

Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy is often the second line of defense when it comes to treating bone cancer. Radiation therapy is the use of radioactive materials to destroy cancer cells in the body. It can be given in the office as regular treatments where the radiation is essentially beamed into the body. 

There are also radioactive pellets that can be placed inside the body to fight off cancer. However, with bone cancer, the regular treatments in the office are the more common means of fighting off the cancer. 

Chemotherapy

Another option available for bone cancer is chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is basically a drug cocktail given to the patient. These drugs will destroy cancer cells in the body, though they can also destroy healthy cells. This is why so many people on chemotherapy lose their hair. 

Chemotherapy drugs can be administered intravenously, through an IV. Sometimes, patients with bone cancer also take oral chemotherapy drugs to help combat the progression of their cancer. 

Now that you know some of the treatment options for bone cancer, you can sit down with your oncologist and discuss your options further. Visit websites like http://swoncology.net/ to learn more.