Breast cancer is high on the list of popular diseases that continue to plague millions of people worldwide. Breast cancer steadily rises along with many of the lifestyle diseases such as heart diseases and diabetes.
The most feared diagnosis for these patients is learning that they have stage 4 breast cancer. What does it really mean to have stage 4 breast cancer?
The cancer stage is a measure of how far the cancer has spread throughout the body. In cancer, the body cells lose their innate control and divide at a very rapid rate. Cancer cells who have reached other organs are said to have spread or metastasized.
A cancer that has a higher number for staging has a lower chance of survival and cure. Cancer therapies are often combined to provide better effect against the battle with cancer. Perhaps one of the most well known therapy against cancer is chemotherapy.
What does chemotherapy do to help cancer progression?
Chemotherapy makes use of special type of medications that have the capacity to control or kill the rapidly dividing cancer cells. These chemotherapy products may have different methods of action but they all have a goal to delay or stop further cell division and prevent them from spreading further to other parts of the body. In a cancer on a stage 4 or malignant type it is difficult to detect the cells manually and make it ineffective to simply remove the cancerous cells. This is the reason why the more invasive chemotherapy is used in these malignant cancer stages.
What are the possible side effects of chemotherapy on stage 4 breast cancer?
Just like many treatment regimen, the chemotherapy for stage 4 best cancer also has its down side. It is not a perfect treatment and it also has its accompanying ill or side effects. One of the most frequently seen and noticeable effect of chemotherapy is hair loss. The cancer chemotherapy medications used can recognize cancer cells if they are multiplying rapidly. This action makes it attack any cells within the body that is dividing faster than normal. Unfortunately, our normal hair cells multiply at a rapid rate too. These medicines on chemotherapy cannot identify the normal hair cell from the cancer cells that have the same characteristics. This makes alopecia a common and popular side effect that stems from chemotherapy. There are also other side effects from chemotherapy such as stomach ache, vomiting, fatigue, etc.
What to do when you find out you have Stage 4 Breast Cancer .