Surgery Next>

Surgery is a technique we employ under certain circumstances to treat cancer. Not all cancers can be removed through surgery, but sometimes when there is a life threat we need to perform a surgery to remove a tumor causing an occlusion on different organs, when the tumor is impinging on arteries, veins, or nerves, or causing pressure on the lungs, pancreas, or liver.

In these instances we have to explain to the patient that if we treat the tumor with surgery in very early stages, the early surgical removal of the tumor and removal of the lymph nodes can provide better odds for survival. Using a piece of the tumor to create a vaccine also allows the opportunity for us to educate the patient's own immune system to terminate the cancer activity.

My philosophy about surgery is to only apply it in life-threatening situations. I will explain how to deal with the possible metastasis caused by the surgery later. I will only use the surgery in extreme cases, such as when a patient has an obstruction in the colon, or a lung has collapsed because of a tumor is putting pressure on it or channels in the pancreas are obstructed by a tumor. We need to make intelligent decisions on these situations because cutting the tumor out will solve the immediate problem, but how will we work with the immune system in the future to eradicate the cancer as it has a chance to spread?

If I choose to do surgery, eliminating the tumor will remove millions of cancer cells from the system. The immune system will be challenged with only hundreds of remaining cancer cells, and with freer resources, be more active against them. But we also need to work intelligently at this point and realize that the immune system still may be unable to detect the cancer, and unless it is taught to do so, will not be able to recognize a tumor, which could then return more aggressively.