KATE MIDDLETON'S ALLEGED CANCER DIAGNOSIS - GD -

healthcare.utah.edu/the-scope/health-library/all/2024/05/misconception-of-preventative-chemotherapy

Clarifying Preventive Chemotherapy


So now if we get back to your original question, Mitch, about preventative chemotherapy, we use chemotherapy in the oncology world to treat all kinds of cancers. So the case that has been in the news lately, there was a surgery and cancer was discovered and effectively removed it seems like. And so then people are asking, "Why does someone need chemotherapy if the cancer has been removed?" And that's probably the number one question we get from our patients after they've had an effective surgery, and then they come to see a medical oncologist, like myself, and we talk to them about chemotherapy. And that's the first question, "Why do I need chemotherapy?"



Adjuvant Chemotherapy: Reducing the Risk of Recurrence


It all comes down to the risk of cancer recurrence, right? So if there was a big cancer, an aggressive cancer, let's say, for example, the cancer was in lymph nodes, there's a higher chance that that cancer will come back, right? And so we refer to doing any additional therapy at that point adjuvant therapy, so after surgery. And that can include chemotherapy, and that can include radiation therapy for example. And so I think in the case that's been in the news, there was a high-risk cancer that was removed, and they're doing chemotherapy in an adjuvant setting, so giving the patient chemotherapy in case there's any microscopic disease left behind. It must have been a high-risk case.



Role of Chemotherapy in Cancer Treatment


And so the point of chemotherapy is to eradicate any microscopic residual cells to prevent recurrence. So it's not really preventing the cancer because she already had cancer. It's actually trying to prevent a recurrence. So I think that's where the terminology is different. So they're not preventing the cancer in the first place. They're preventing a recurrence, and that's why she's getting chemotherapy I think.



Interviewer: So again, just to kind of summarize, no, you can't go into a doctor's office and get loaded with chemotherapy to stop or prevent cancer, correct?



Limits of Preventive Chemotherapy


Dr. Werner: Absolutely. So if you go back to what I said earlier, right, these chemotherapy medications, they go in and they kill rapidly dividing cells. So if the cancer is a precancerous lesion or it's eventually going to turn into cancer, it's not a rapidly dividing cell. So giving somebody chemotherapy, in that sense, to truly prevent cancer from happening in the first place is actually just going to cause side effects because while cancer is a rapidly dividing cell, there are other rapidly dividing cells in your body that are normal. So the cells that line your mouth, so some patients who get chemotherapy get mouth sores for example. Your hair follicles are rapidly turning over, so that's why patients lose their hair, right? So it's all the collateral damage to the normal body that we see with chemotherapy.



So when we're talking about chemotherapy, there's a risk-benefit ratio, right? So in cases where we can prevent a recurrence, that's why we would do chemotherapy. But to give a healthy person, who might have a chance of cancer, chemotherapy would not be done, and that would cause a lot of side effects. Yeah.



Interviewer: Got you. So the main ways that we can prevent cancer, both primary and secondary, we can make sure we're not doing things to have cancer form in the first place, and we can do our screenings to make sure, hey, we can catch it early enough that it doesn't turn into something more severe.



Dr. Werner: Absolutely.

Kate Middleton ‘May Not Appear in Public for Rest of the Year’: Sources

Tom Sykes

Fri, May 24, 2024 at 2:30 a.m. MDT·6 min read

ca.news.yahoo.com/kate-middleton-may-not-appear-083040336.html

Kate Middleton likely to ‘not appear in public for the rest of the year’ as she avoids stress, anxiety amid cancer battle: report

By Social Links forEileen Reslen

Published May 24, 2024, 6:05 p.m. ET

pagesix.com/2024/05/24/royal-family/kate-middleton-likely-to-not-appear-in-public-this-year-as-she-avoids-stress-anxiety-report/