After surgery, some cancer patients can safely refuse radiation and chemotherapy. Two studies by American scientists came to this conclusion at once.
Their authors were looking for ways to predict with a high degree of accuracy which cancer patients might refuse hard therapies that cause serious side effects and are not always justified. One study used blood tests to determine which bowel cancer patients could refuse chemotherapy after surgery. Another study showed that some low-risk patients with breast tumors may not undergo radiation after surgery.
Many patients with bowel cancer receive chemotherapy after surgery, although they may already be healthy by then. Chemotherapy drugs have a host of severe side effects, including memory impairment, anemia, and nausea. But it has always been difficult to single out those who do not need this procedure in this category of patients.
And now a blood test for signs of preservation of traces of the tumor showed that some patients can refuse chemotherapy. Further observations confirmed its validity. As for women, they used tests for the level of Ki67 protein, a marker of rapidly growing and aggressive cancer. The lower it was, the less was the need for additional treatment after surgery. (READ MORE)