Stage 4 Cancer Treatment

Alternative Cancer Treatments for Stage 4 Cancer Patients

A cancer is said to be in Stage IV when it has spread from its site of origin to distant organs, this progression is also known as metastasis. Unless a metastasis is singular—meaning it has only spread to one specific site—and accessible, it usually means that the cancer is no longer curable with localized therapies such as surgery or radiotherapy.

Some types of stage IV cancer can be attacked effectively with chemotherapy; other types are poorly responsive to the cytotoxic drugs that are currently available. Even when a cancer shows a good initial response to chemotherapy - shrinking or disappearing - in most cases the cancer eventually grows back, this time in a form that is less responsive to the chemotherapy. This evolution of chemo-resistance is not a mystery, because it is well known that the chromosomes of cancer cells are prone to undergo frequent changes (genetic and epigenetic). All cancer cells behave differently and thus their response to chemotherapy drugs varies. Successful chemotherapy will kill a high proportion of the responsive cells in a tumor - but the less responsive cells are prone to survive and give rise to new tumors that will be much harder to kill with the initial chemotherapy.

When stage IV cancer continue to progress despite repeated attempts of conventional cancer treatment, most doctors are prone to throwing up their hands, telling the patient that "I've done all I can", and suggesting that the patient find a good hospice and get his or her affairs in order.

A high proportion of the patients who come to Oasis of Hope have stage IV cancer and have already been through this discouraging process. But at Oasis of Hope they encounter doctors who are eager to work with them and to fight for them as long as they are willing to fight for themselves. At Oasis there truly is Hope for patients with stage IV cancer.