Why is my treatment plan changing?

 

Q: Why is my treatment plan changing?

A: Your cancer treatment plan is an outline of what your health care team expects to happen based on their knowledge of treatment protocols and your specific diagnosis. The aim of your plan is to give you the most therapeutic treatment with minimal side effects. However, your response to treatment will be unique to you.

Changes may be made to your original treatment plan to insure your best response and quality of life. You should be an active participant in such decisions. Do not fear a treatment plan change--get the information you need to understand the benefits of this change.
--Bernice Crook, RN, OCN

Here's what you can do to optimize your treatment.

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Iressa® plus Arimidex® Improves Progression-free Survival in Patients with Metastatic Breast Cancer

March 16, 2010 — Researchers from the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have reported that the addition of Iressa® (gefitinib) to Arimidex® (anastrozole) improves progression-free survival (PFS) in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive metastatic breast cancer. The details of this study were published in the March 15, 2010 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

Children and Teens Have Better NHL Survival than Young Adults

March 16, 2010 — Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have reported that children and teens with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) have better survival than young adults. These results were published in the March 2010 issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Select news items provided by Reuters Health