if you go through kemo and raditation.......?

Question

if you had cancer and went through both radiation and kemo and the cancer went away...but 5 months later you get another type of cancer can you go through kemo and radiation again? i've herd that you cant....

thanks everyone, my soon to be mother in law might have lung cancer in both lungs...they found somthing in the xray..so pray that it's not to bad (=

Answer 1

It depends if the cancer is still responding to chemo or radiotherapy. Sometimes the cells that were left after the first treatment (that's why the cancer comes back, because some cells were not killed completely by chemo or radiation) are resistant to the drugs that were employed. In that case, the cancer will be said not to respond to these drugs anymore. And usually, if there is another cancer within 5 months, we're talking about a relapse of the same cancer, but moved to another location.

But even if it does not respond to the same treatment, that does not mean nothing can be done ! Nowadays, there are several types of chemo. Some types are generally tried first; those are called "first line" chemo. And then you have different drugs, which are called "second line", that are given if the first ones dont work, and even sometimes "third line" drugs, when first and second line wont work.

Answer 2

Try Vitamin C therapy. A few years ago a cancer researcher came out with a paper saying that the best cancer and infection fighter as yet found was Interferon, but, at the time, it cost $15,000 a gram. The good part was that Interferon was a product of the natural breakdown of Vitamin C in your system. Shortly after that paper came out the FDA tried to make Vit C by prescription only. Guess why? The FDA says that the RDA for Vit C is 64 mg a day, just enough to prevent scurvy. Linus Pauling, who got a Nobel Prize for his work with Vit C and a second Nobel Prize for organic chemistry, said 1000 mg a day as a minimum and 2000 mg a day if you are sick. On a personal note, I was sick twice a year, for 2 weeks at a time, for 20 years, and was flat on my back for at least a week each time. To this day the doctors have no idea what the problem was. After I gave up on the doctors I tried Vit C. I took enough to keep from being sick and just below too much to get diarrhea. It followed a bell curve over 2 weeks with a peak at 40,000 mg a day – about 300,000 over the 2 weeks. I was not sick for those 2 weeks and after a couple of years of that I have not been sick since. I did not dissolve my kidneys, as some doctors said would happen. I did not get any calcium build up or stones and did not dissolve my cones or solidify my joints. Try it, but drink a lot of water – Vit C is a natural diuretic.

Answer 3

I am a radiation therapist and with radiation there is a limit to the amount each part of the body can receive. It is called the tolerance dose. (different body parts can tolerate different amounts of radiation depending on the type of cells in that area) So if the cancer is in the same place and the treatment field will overlap the area previously treated then it will depend on the dose that the original treatment received. If the new treatment field is in a different part of the body then you can definately be treated with radiation. As far as chemo you can be treated again, many times they try a different combo of drugs.

Answer 4

Chemotherapy is "controlled poisoning", and radiation is "controlled destruction" of body cells. Both these treatments work by targeting cancer cells; in the case of chemo, the higher metabolism cancer cells absorb the poison quicker & die before the patient does: In the case of radiation, the energy is physically directed at the cells you need to destroy.

There is no logical reason why you could not employ either of these techniques in a patient who recovered from one type of cancer but then unfortuitously developed another...

Answer 5

Not true. It is not unusual for someone to have a cancer somewhere else after being cured of the first one. THis, by the way is not metastasis....is it a primary cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation were given the first time for the original cancer, and can be given again for this cancer.

Answer 6

Yes. One of the unfortunate risks that childhood cancer patients take when undergoing high dose chemotherapy is developing a secondary cancer. I know two patients who were treated and cured from sarcoma only to develop leukemia. One died, the other is responding well to treatment for leukemia (still no sign of the sarcoma returning). So, yes, you can be treated again.

Answer 7

The amount of chemo you can have is infinite as long as you are not suffering any significant side effects. There is a certain amount of radiation you can be give though. you can only receive it again if it is in a completely different location.

Answer 8

I administer chemotherapy to cancer vicitms and have actually had patients who have had more than 1 kind of cancer and had to be re treated for something totally not related to the 1st malignancy.

Answer 9

You may not be able to have rt in the same area agaun but somewhere else is ni problem. You may not able to have the same type of chemo but that is not always the case. Let you oncologist know about the previous treatment if it is not the same one.

Answer 10

you can! cancer can come back because the doctors might have thought they cleared it out but it's still there!!!!!!! that is happening to my cousin right now. her 2nd time around stomach cancer. its very rare. they dont know how to cure the second time.