How long will the cancer patient survive? Is Chemotherapy mandatory for cancer? - Dr. Sandeep Nayak

Dr. Sandeep Nayak | Appointment No 9482202240| Robotic and Laparoscopic Cancer Surgeon,
MACS Clinic & Director, Fortis Cancer Institute |MACS Clinic, TRIMACS HEALTHCARE, Bengaluru
It is very common in my practice for patients to come or for patients relatives to came and sit and ask how long will my patient survive? The fact is nobody has an answer for this question. It is always an estimate. It is always a statistics. If at a given chance of survival for this long, we say 5 year survival rate of this much percent, it means if there are 100 percentage with cancer then 80% will make it to 5 years. Now what does it mean to a given patient? You may be in the 20% or you may be in the 80%. So you can be sure on which part of the rate you are. So whenever you go to a doctor and ask what is going to happen to me. In reality the doctor does not know. What I tell my patient is focus on treatment. If a doctor has suggested you treatment that means your disease is treatable and look at the positive side of it, go or the treatment ad hope for the best, because the doctor is trying to do the best for you, always THINK POSITIVE. Cancer is never the end of your life, infact a lot of cancers today can be treated and can cure cam be achieved. even in stage 4 cancer cure is achievable in good number of patients. We see a good number of patients with stage 4 cancer and see them dong well. There is a segment of them who do well. So the surgeon or the doctor is only helping them to treat cancer. So finally the fight between the two, one of them will win and which one is determined by multiple factors, that makes the final result. However there are specific situation where we can say life expectancy is very bad, that is there are multiple tumors that are spread in the brain, or entire liver is affected by cancer or entire lung is affected by cancer.