Basic Knowledge and Treatments for Metastatic Cancer

To those who suffered from cancers, metastatic cancer might be a more terrible threat to them than the primary cancer. Thus, people’s desires on learning about what is metastatic cancer and how to treat it have become more and more intense. This paper will lay out some knowledge on metastatic cancer and related treatment methods.

 

Basic knowledge of metastatic cancer

1.     What is metastatic cancer?

Metastatic cancer is cancer that has spread from the place where it first started to another place in the body. It has the same name and the same type of cancer cells as the original or primary cancer. For example, breast cancer that spreads to the lungs and forms a metastatic tumor is metastatic breast cancer, not lung cancer.

2.     Can any type of cancer form a metastatic tumor?

Actually all cancers, including cancers of the blood and the lymphatic system (leukemia, multiple myeloma, and lymphoma), can form metastatic tumors. Although rare, the metastasis of blood and lymphatic system cancers to the lungs, heart, central nervous system, and other tissues has been reported.

3.     Where does cancer spread?

The most common sites of cancer metastasis are the lungs, bones, and liver. Some might spread to brain, skin, muscle or peritomeun as well. 

4.     Does metastatic cancer have symptoms?

Some people with metastatic tumors do not have symptoms. Their metastases are found by x-rays or other tests.

When symptoms of metastatic cancer occur, the type and frequency of the symptoms will depend on the size and location of the metastasis.

Sometimes a person’s original cancer is discovered only after a metastatic tumor causes symptoms.

5.     If a person who was previously treated for cancer gets diagnosed with cancer a second time, is the new cancer a new primary cancer or metastatic cancer?

The cancer may be a new primary cancer, but, in most cases, it is metastatic cancer.

6.     What treatments are applied for metastatic cancer?

Metastatic cancer may be treated with surgery, radiation therapy,chemotherapy, biological therapy, interventional targeted therapy, hormonal therapy,interventional therapy, cyrotherapy, combined therapy of traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine, immunotherapy, or a combination of the above treatments. The choice of treatment generally depends on the patient’s individual condition.