General Medicine

» P_Al - Spinal cancer issue

In response to Spinal cancer issue posted by tinuviel:
.
Generally speaking, cancer surgery has several goals. These include the following.
1) To remove the entire tumour or as much as possible so as to improve the prognosis. If you can remove all of the tumour you could be effecting a cure. I beleive this is the principle the doctors are referring to when they said that they want to remove it before it progresses.
2) By removing the tumour you may also improve symptoms e.g. those due to the mass effect of its presence.
3) To provide tissue that can be examined under the microscope so as to establish the diagnosis. They are actually trying to remove the tumour while obtaining a biopsy sample - you don't want to have to do two surgeries.
.
After the diagnosis is establish they will probably then recommend further therapy based on the type of tumour. These decisions will also depend on the stage, determined by all the tests.

-- posted by P_Al