According to new studies, cancer patients frequently respond better to less extensive treatment.

Physicians announced at the largest cancer conference in the world that patients’ lives can be improved without compromising outcomes by reducing treatment for three types of cancer.

It’s a part of a long-term trend investigating if cutting back on radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery can improve patient outcomes and lengthen life. The most recent research included Hodgkin lymphoma, ovarian, and esophageal cancer.

The goal of cancer research thirty years ago was to accomplish more, not less. One grim example is bone marrow transplants and high dosages of chemotherapy that drove people with advanced breast cancer to the verge of death. The method wasn’t any more effective than chemotherapy, and the patients experienced harm.

Researchers are now questioning, “Do we need all that treatment that we have used in the past?” in an effort to optimise cancer care.

Dr. Tatjana Kolevska, medical director of the Kaiser Permanente National Cancer Excellence Programme, who was not involved in the current research, stated that this is a subject “that should be asked over and over again.”

Doing less is frequently possible due to better medications.

As Dr. William G. Nelson of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine put it, “the good news is that cancer treatment is not only becoming more effective, it’s becoming easier to tolerate and associated with less short-term and long-term complications.” Nelson was not involved in the recent study.

Over the weekend, at a symposium in Chicago hosted by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, studies illustrating the trend were deliberated. The highlights are as follows:

OVARIAN CANCER
French researchers discovered that while undergoing surgery for advanced ovarian cancer, it is safe to leave lymph nodes that seem healthy intact. Results for 379 patients were compared in the study; half had their lymph nodes removed, and the other half did not. The patients’ lives did not differ after nine years, and those who underwent less-invasive surgery experienced fewer aftereffects, such as the requirement for blood transfusions. The French National Institute of Cancer provided funding for the study.

ESOPHAGEAL CANCER
This German study examined 438 patients with an esophageal cancer that is surgically treatable. The oesophagus, the tube that transports food from the throat to the stomach, was surgically repaired and chemotherapy was part of the standard treatment regimen for the other half. Half received a different strategy that also involves radiation. Both methods are regarded as conventional. Which one a patient receives may vary depending on where they receive care.

Three years later, 57% of patients who received chemotherapy and surgery and 51% of patients who received chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation were still alive. The study was financed by the German Research Foundation.

HODGKIN LYMPHOMA
When two different chemotherapy regimens for advanced Hodgkin lymphoma were compared, it was discovered that the less rigorous treatment was more successful in curing the blood cancer and had fewer adverse effects.

Compared to 91% of individuals who had the more intensive treatment, 94% of those who received the less harsh chemotherapy were able to control their condition after four years. The experiment, which was supported by Takeda Oncology, the manufacturer of one of the medications used in the milder chemotherapy that was investigated, involved 1,482 participants from nine countries: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Australia, and New Zealand.

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