Why do doctors wait for cancer to progress to a further stage before prescribing certain treatments like immunotherapy?
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You first do what you know works. If it doesn’t then you progress to treatments which are more speculative or have more harmful side effects.
Cancer treatment is VERY dangerous. In many cases it might kill faster than illness itself. Meanwhile early stages of cancer are often quite responsive to lighter drugs.
As a rule of thumbs – you want to treat, not to kill. And thus you will not use potentially lethal treatment before you tried safer options and cancer development pattern gives you time for such trials.
It’s basically risk management. Lots of things in life, including procedures, add risk. If they don’t need those options yet, the less risky path is chosen to (hopefully) find the same reward
You first do what you know works. If it doesn’t then you progress to treatments which are more speculative or have more harmful side effects.
Cancer treatment is VERY dangerous. In many cases it might kill faster than illness itself. Meanwhile early stages of cancer are often quite responsive to lighter drugs.
As a rule of thumbs – you want to treat, not to kill. And thus you will not use potentially lethal treatment before you tried safer options and cancer development pattern gives you time for such trials.
You don’t go rabbit hunting with an AC130. Use the correct tool for the job or you could easily go overkill
It’s basically risk management. Lots of things in life, including procedures, add risk. If they don’t need those options yet, the less risky path is chosen to (hopefully) find the same reward
This is a bit like asking, “Why do firefighters wait until there’s an alarm to send the fire truck?” If cancer is caught early and the patient has a good chance of recovery and survival with the least aggressive treatment, then there’s no reason to bring out the big guns which usually come with bigger risks.
You don’t go rabbit hunting with an AC130. Use the correct tool for the job or you could easily go overkill
This is a bit like asking, “Why do firefighters wait until there’s an alarm to send the fire truck?” If cancer is caught early and the patient has a good chance of recovery and survival with the least aggressive treatment, then there’s no reason to bring out the big guns which usually come with bigger risks.
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