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Apr. 25–30, 2005 Listen to the message
Treatment After Surgery
What can I say when a patient sitting across from me in the consult room says a surgeon got it all?
I tell them that hopefully the surgeon did remove all the cancer, but that a surgeon can only remove what a surgeon sees, and microscopic cancer contamination may still be present.
The surgeon can’t see the cancer because it is so small. A thousand cancer cells fit in a grain of sand, 25,000 on the head of a pin!
You see, as cancer grows, it creates roots that can invade blood vessels the way tree roots grow into pipes below ground. Invasion of the blood and lymph can provide access for loose tumor cells to travel down the bloodstream and in the body.
The treatments I prescribe—like chemotherapy—track down these rogue cancer cells and kill them before they evolve into tumors.
That’s why cancer treatment after surgery is so often necessary.
