The world seemingly came to a screeching halt after Kate Middleton announced the shocking news on Friday that she is battling cancer. And while it’s still unclear exactly what type of cancer she’s battling, the Princess of Wales shared what type of treatment she’s currently undergoing.
In a video statement shared by Buckingham Palace, the 42-year-old mother of three revealed that her medical team had advised her to “undergo preventative chemotherapy treatment”. She added that she is “now in the early stages of this treatment.”
And it was the medical term – “preventative chemotherapy” – that made people wonder what it entails. In an effort to better understand the Princess of Wales’ cancer treatment, ET spoke with Dr.oncologist and interim president of the Hematology and Oncology Division of the renowned Mayo clinic. Jones, who practices at a world-class facility in Florida and was not involved in Kate’s diagnosis, explained “preventive chemotherapy.”
“So when people talk about preventive chemotherapy, what we’re really talking about is that when a surgeon comes in and removes colon cancer, he removes all the cancer he can see, and sometimes it’s all the cancer he can see. . ‘, Jones told ET. “And there are tiny cells floating around that are still cancers. If we do the surgery ourselves, and the patients who still have these tiny cells, the cancer will almost certainly return.”
“And so when we talk about preventative chemotherapy – the medical jargon for that is adjuvant chemotherapy – the goal of chemotherapy in that setting is to kill the few remaining viable cells that are floating around out there that haven’t had a chance to start working and really define your routes,” he continues. “We give patients chemotherapy to prevent the cancer from coming back.”
When Kate shared that she was undergoing “preventative chemotherapy,” many outside the medical community wondered if it was a type of chemotherapy for avoid Cancer. But that’s not the case, says Jones.
“So it’s not preventative in terms of everyone getting chemotherapy, and it will reduce the risk of cancer,” he explains. “That’s not the case. In fact, the reason we might consider adjuvant chemotherapy (or preventive chemotherapy) is actually based on that patient’s, that individual’s, risk of developing cancer recurrence.”
Last month, when it was announced that King Charles III was diagnosed with cancer, the palace has not revealed the type of cancer Her Majesty is battling. It’s safe to say the palace will follow the same guideline with Kate’s diagnosis. That the Princess of Wales suffered”planned abdominal surgery” January also led many to speculate what type of cancer she’s dealing with, but Jones told ET it’s more complicated than that.
“If we think about the most common cancer, that would be colon cancer. By far, it would be the most common cancer. That being said, there are several other organs,” explains Jones. “If you think about any organ that’s in your belly, that organ can develop cancer. So any of the reproductive organs, whether male or female. The small intestine. Some of the lymph nodes in the abdomen can also develop cancer. But In general, the most common cancer in the abdomen is colon cancer.”
But then again, abdomen, says Jones, “is a very nonspecific term,” meaning Kate’s abdominal surgery is in no way a roadmap for the type of cancer she’s battling.
“When you’re talking about a cancer that arises in the abdomen, that doesn’t give us enough specificity,” says Jones. “So generally we would break it down into ovarian cancer, colon cancer, small bowel cancer, stomach cancer, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer. distinctly different cancers and are generally treated quite differently.”
It’s also difficult to tell what stage of cancer Kate is fighting.
“The way we determine which patients would or would not receive chemotherapy is really based on the risk of recurrence. And the risk of recurrence is calculated in a number of different ways,” says Jones. “But the most important thing is the stage of diagnosis. So when a patient undergoes surgery, we look at the tissue or tumor that was removed under a microscope and see to what extent it is involved in the primary mass. Has it spread to the lymph nodes surrounding it? Has it spread to other organs around it? And that gives us a kind of stage, which most people have heard of, from stage 1 to stage 4.”
“Based on this staging, this gives us a good statistical idea of what this patient’s risk is for developing recurrence,” he continues. “We use this information – in addition to the patient’s willingness or ability to undergo chemotherapy – to decide who is the best candidate for chemotherapy, for prevention (chemotherapy) or for what we call adjuvant chemotherapy.”
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