Gandma had colon cancer. They just cut ist out.
Grandpa has liver cancer. Has to go through chemo.
Why cant they just cut out the liver cancer. The liver can heal Right?
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If we can just cut it out, we do. That cancer is considered operable. Inoperable cancer an be cut out.
When cancer grows, it can get tangled up in all sorts of organs, and removing it could cause too much damage to surrounding organs. It’s also possible that the cancer metastasizes, meaning a piece of the tumor (as small as a single cell) and then gets stuck somewhere else in the body to start growing a new tumor. These new tumors can’t be detected because they’re too small, so if they exist, cutting out the existing tumor won’t do any good, but chemo works on the whole body at once, so it will hit those hidden tumors. They also usually won’t cut out the larger tumor to see how the cancer responds to the chemo. If the large tumor shrinks significantly, then all of those small ones are likely gone, so chemo can be ended and the tumor can be removed.
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