Treatment for Ovarian Cancer

Many women with ovarian cancer want to take an active part in making decisions about their medical care. It is natural to want to learn all you can about your disease and treatment choices. Knowing more about ovarian cancer helps many women cope.

Shock and stress after the diagnosis can make it hard to think of everything you want to ask doctor. Your doctor may refer you to a gynecologic oncologist, a surgeon who specializes in treating ovarian cancer. Or you may ask for referral. Other types of doctors who help treat women with ovarian cancer include gynecologists, medical oncologists, and gynecologists, and radiation oncologists. You may have a team of doctors and nurses.

Before starting treatment, you might want a second opinion about your diagnosis and treatment plan.

It may take some time and effort to gather medical records and arrange to see another doctor. In most cases, a brief delay in starting treatment will not make treatment less effective. To make sure, you should discuss this delay with your doctor. Sometimes women with ovarian cancer need treatment right away.

The treatment Methods

Your doctor can describe your treatment choices and the expected results. Most women have surgery and chemotherapy . rarely, radiation therapy is used.

Cancer treatment can affect cancer cells in the pelvis, in the abdomen, or throughout the body

• Local therapy : Surgery and Radiation therapy are local therapies. They remove or destroy ovarian cancer in the pelvis. When ovarian cancer has spread to other parts of the body, local therapy may be used to control the disease in those specific areas
• Intraperitoneal chemotherapy : chemotherapy can be given directly into abdomen and pelvis through a thin tube. The drugs destroy or control cancer in the abdomen and pelvis.
• Systemic chemotherapy : when chemotherapy is taken by mouth or injected into a vein, the drugs enter the bloodstream and destroy or control cancer throughout the body.

You may want to know how treatment may change your normal activities. Because cancer treatments often damage healthy cells and tissues, side effects depend mainly on the type and extent of the treatment. Side effects may not be the same for each woman, and they may change from one treatment session to the next. Before treatment starts, your health care team will explain possible side effects and suggest ways to help your manage them.

>> To know more about Surgery and Radiation for Ovarian Cancer