Your Priorities, Your Treatment Path
- Your cancer treatment path should be tailored to your hopes, goals, and lifestyle.
- For some patients, cure or maximum control of the disease is the goal. For others, alleviating symptoms and living comfortably is more of a priority.
- There is much more to care about than blood tests, scans, and drugs; the most important part is understanding what matters most to you, and building the plan around it.
- It’s important to speak openly with your care team about your goals — coming up with a treatment plan should be a team effort.
For some men facing prostate cancer, the main goal of treatment is cure — hands down. For others, it’s decreasing pain and minimizing side effects, trying to maintain a quality of life while keeping the cancer controlled as much as possible. There is much more to care about than blood tests, scans, and drugs; the most important part is understanding what matters most to you, and building the plan around it.
Read MoreTailored Care: Addressing Your Needs
Tailored care means having a conversation, not simply being told what you “must” do. The idea is to match the intensity of treatment, whenever possible, to your priorities and goals. If a cure is possible and aligns with your values, your team will focus on options that go all out against the cancer, such as combinations like radiation plus short‑ or long‑term hormone therapy, or surgery followed by focused radiation if needed.On the other hand, if a cure is unlikely or not your main goal, your team might focus on controlling the disease progression, reducing symptoms, and maintaining your daily function. For instance, that can mean some therapies with fewer effects on mood, balance, or sexual function.
“I, as a cancer doctor, might assume [your priority] is cure at any cost, but for some patients, cure is not an option, or it’s not the main priority. It may be to relieve symptoms and suffering. It may be to prevent loss of function so that they can attend an important life event, and for yet others, it might be preservation of their urinary and bowel, and sexual function,” Dr. Vapiwala explains.
“So whatever those concerns are, I need to understand them in order to make sure that that patient gets the most tailored conversation, the most tailored information possible,” she adds.
Communicating Your Priorities
The experts and oncologists SurvivorNet spoke to stressed that patients should speak up about what is important to them — as that’s a key to treatment planning as well.
Dr. Vapiwala explains that patients often feel anxiety about how cancer will impact their life, if they’ll be able to continue working, if their insurance will cover different treatments, how the diagnosis will impact family, and so much more. All of these concerns can, and should, be discussed with your team.
“There’s so much more than a cancer patient,” she adds, there’s your whole life to consider.
If preserving urinary and bowel control, sexual function, or stamina to continue working are top goals, your team is trained and can guide you to the best treatment choices to help you meet them.
For a man aiming for maximum control, doctors might add hormone therapy to radiation because together they suppress cancer more deeply; at the same time, this team will build a plan to protect muscles and bones, and schedule regular check‑ins to adjust if side effects outweigh benefits.
For someone focused more on comfort and function, a different, less intense course of therapy might provide more relief.
Throughout your cancer journey, it’s important to note that plans can continue to be tailored and adjusted so they better align with your life.
Questions To Ask Your Doctor
- If my goal is cure or maximum control, what treatment do you recommend?
- What treatment path will reduce my risk of serious side effects?
- Will I be able to keep working and staying active?
- What lifestyle adjustments will I need to make during and after treatment?
Content independently created by SurvivorNet with support from Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.
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