The most difficult stage in the fight against a cancerous tumor is the moment of the realization that it is not possible to influence the prognosis.
In such cases, palliative treatment is used to alleviate symptoms and improve quality of life. It begins when other available means are not effective. It is palliative treatment that helps patients cope with pain, organ dysfunction, anxiety, and psychological experiences.
It should be noted that assistance of this kind is impossible without professional permanent medical monitoring of the patient's condition. Palliative treatment includes various measures to alleviate the course of the disease. To conduct them, a combination of clinical medicine, the availability of qualified nursing and medical personnel, as well as professional care is necessary.
The main methods include:
- radiation oncology and radiation therapy ;
- chemotherapy;
- brachytherapy;
- stereotactic radiotherapy and radiosurgery.
All these measures are aimed at solving problems of ensuring pain reduction and mitigating the symptoms of the disease, providing psychological support, as well as creating the most comfortable conditions for the patient's most active and long life.
Palliative chemotherapy is carried out in order to slow down the course of the disease, stop the growth of the tumor. Procedures may be combined with radiation. In such cases, in many clinics, combined protocols are used, where the introduction of chemotherapy at a certain time during radiation therapy is provided. These measures are of great importance in prolonging the life of cancer patients.
Palliative care includes several basic principles:
- recognize death and life as natural processes;
- Do not prolong aging and not bring death ;
- eliminate pain and other manifestations of malignant neoplasms;
- Throughout life and after the death of the patient, provide psychological assistance to relatives.
The composition of the measures includes examinations, during which they identify and evaluate the severity of individual symptoms, determine the prospects of impact on the patient's condition. Upon completion of therapeutic procedures, an analysis of their effectiveness is performed.
During the examination, symptoms are distributed according to their severity. In addition, the prevalence of a malignant neoplasm is specified, associated diseases that aggravate the manifestation of the tumor process are identified . During the examination, familiarization work with the patient’s environment is also carried out, sources of psychological support are determined.
The determination of the prospects for further manipulations is carried out on the basis of the data obtained during the examination and study of the relevant medical documentation.
It should be noted that conducting instrumental and laboratory studies is a very significant stage. With an illiterate assessment of symptoms and a lack of understanding of their pathogenesis, palliative therapy will be ineffective.
When choosing a method, the patient should undoubtedly take part as much as possible. In this case, the doctor must explain in detail the advantages and disadvantages of each method of exposure. At the same time, despite the fairly complete awareness and probable participation of the patient, the responsibility for subsequent treatment in all cases lies only with the doctor. It should be noted that the specialist should not, under the influence of the patient or his relatives, make decisions that are contrary to medical duty and his conscience.