|  | Cancer | Cancer Treatments

Prevention of Secondary Cancer

Cancer treatment favors the bold and proactive. The longer cancer has time to develop unimpeded, the more the general survival rate declines. Cancer is at its most powerful when it has metastasized, or spread from its original site to other locations throughout the body. Preventing this from occurring requires assertiveness to aggressively stop cancer before it reaches this point.

  1. Cancer

    • Cancer symptoms vary widely depending on where the cancer originates, but there are some symptoms that are commonalities to all forms of cancer. These include chills, fever, night sweating, general feelings of malaise, fatigue and unexplainable weight loss. The difficulty is that many of these symptoms overlap with any number of other conditions, so rely on your doctor's expertise to sort out a proper diagnosis.

    Secondary Cancer

    • According to the National Cancer Institute, secondary cancer is a term referring to cancer that has "branched out," moving from its original location to any other part of the body. As cancer grows, it eventually moves into the lymph nodes, allowing it to transport itself to other organs and tissue. This occurrence marks the development of secondary cancer.

    Preventing Secondary Cancer

    • According to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, the only way to truly prevent the emergence of secondary cancer is to detect the cancer while it is still confined to the primary site and eliminate it there. This requires sensitivity to the initial symptoms of cancer, coupled with a willingness to visit your physician for a professional opinion before it is too late.

    Benefits

    • The primary benefit to preventing secondary cancer is a vast improvement in the average five-year survival rate (which marks the percentage of patients who will be living five years following their original diagnosis). For example, according to statistics on EMedTV, the five-year survival rate for an individual with primary prostate cancer is 100 percent. Contrast that with the average five-year rate for someone with secondary prostate cancer, which is only 33.3 percent.

    Considerations

    • Eating a cancer-free diet is a good way to prevent the development of both primary and secondary cancers. According to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, strive to consume a diet that has no more than 30 percent of total calories from fat, is rich in fruits, vegetables and whole grains and allows you to maintain a reasonable body weight.

Cancer Treatments - Related Articles