What are the possible treatments for ovarian cancer which had recently been your diagnosis? Will the treatments affect your overall health? What are the chances that you will be able to get out of the disease? There are many questions which are mind boggling when it comes to how the cancer will be treated.

The doctor will first evaluate the stage of your cancer, the type of ovarian cancer you have and most especially your body’s overall health before he will recommend any treatment program for you. The cancer can be treated on three methods such as the surgery, chemotherapy and or radiotherapy. These methods can be a combination of surgery and chemotherapy and or radiotherapy.

Almost all women who suffer from ovarian cancer undergo surgery. Surgery is very important because this is used for the medical expert to stage the ovarian cancer. After examining the patient with laparoscopy or laparotomy, the doctor will now decide if he will do removal of the affected organ or perform debulking (removal of cancer tissues as possible). Surgery can be performed such as the removal of only one ovary (oophorectomy), removal of the uterus (total hysterectomy), removal of the fallopian tubes and both ovaries (bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy) and the removal of the tissues surrounding the bowels (omentectomy). Lymphadenectomy which is the removal the affected lymph nodes and also the removal of the affected intestines if ever can be done. All the cancer cells and tissues which were removed by surgery will all be sent to the histopathological laboratory for further examination.

Another treatment for the ovarian cancer is the chemotherapy. It is by the use of high dosage anti cancer medicine for the cancer cells to be destroyed. Most of the time, chemotherapy is done after surgery because there are still cancer that were not removed and in order for the cancer cells to be destroyed anti cancer drugs are administered. There are various ways to do chemotherapy such as the intravenous injection, intraperitoneal injection, oral administration or intramuscular injection. The most commonly used method is the intravenous injection of high dosage ant cancer medicines. For oral medication, the first line treatment used is the combination of platinum compounds with taxane compounds. Some of the well known generics are cisplatin, carboplatin and paclitaxel. If the combination of paclitaxel and cisplatin fails, second line medicine will be administered such as thexamethylamine (Hexalen®, altretamine) and topotecan hydrochloride (Hycamtin™). Thses durgs were all approved by the USFDA. Usually, chemotherapy last for at least 6 cycles however cancer patients do not complete the cycles because side effects affected their body causing it to be weakened.

Radiotherapy is rarely used for the treatment of cancer of the ovaries. The action of the therapy is to destroy cancer cells which are causing the spread to different organs and tissues by using high energy radiation such as gamma rays. It is not commonly used as a treatment because most of the cases of the women having cancer are already in the later stages. If the stage is only in the earlier stages such as the cancer cells are only in one or both ovaries and the pelvic organs were not yet affected, there is a high probability that radiotherapy can cure the disease. It is also administered in two ways; it can be through a radiotherapy devise performed outside of the body or it can be done by injection of a short lived radioactive chemical into the peritoneal cavity.

Whatever methods that the doctor has recommended for you to use, administer it bcasue doctors have studied and evaluated your condition for them to properly treat your disease by means of the treatment methods for ovarian cancer.