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Cancer therapy options

Vocabulary Users
#1

Could you, please, make these issues less confusing for me?
I’m trying to map a cancer therapy qustionnaire.
There are some options: chemo-, hormone-, immuno-, photochemo-, radiotherapy, targeted therapy and surgery,
and also five types for each option: Primary, Concurrent, Adjuvant, Neoadjuvant, Palliative.
There are some questions:

  1. Adjuvant chemo. No such concept - only “post-operative”. But, I think, “post-operative” is a subset of “adjuvant”.
    An administration of chemo after radiation therapy is not “post-operative”. How can it be mapped?
  2. Palliative chemo. No such concept. There are concepts for palliative radiotherapy, palliative debulking. The latter is a surgery procedure. Can we swap “Palliative chemo” and “Palliative care”?
  3. Hormone therapy - there are no concepts at all for this option. How can it be mapped?
  4. Adjuvant radiotherapy and Neoadj radiotherapy. There a only concepts of “post-operative” and “pre-operative” radiotherapy. But we should take into account that for Hodgkin lymphoma radiotherapy is frequently given after chemo.
    And radiotherapy can also be given before chemo.
#2

@Yuri:

You need what’s called Medical School.

The concepts really are totally different categories:

  • Adjuvant chemotherapy is any chemo given after surgery in the hope that the chemo will kill off the remaining cancer cells. This is not a vocabulary issue. You have to create a cohort with chemo patient and a prior surgery recently. There is no difference between chemo and adjuvant chemo in terms of what drugs are used.
  • Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is chemo given before surgery, with the idea that the chemo will shrink the cancer enough that it can be removed surgically. Against, still a normal chemo.
  • Palliative chemotherapy is any chemo given to people without the hope of curing them. It’s just for prolonging life. Again, ordinary chemo.
  • Hormonal therapy is a pharmacological class. These are hormones are hormone antagonists for treatment of cancers that are dependent on hormones for their growth. Use 21603812 ATC ENDOCRINE THERAPY.
  • Radiotherapy can also be adjuvant or neoadjuvant.
1 Like
#3

Thanks a lot for your respond!

t