Even end-stage colon cancer can be treated successfully. Foreign specialists provide excellent survival rates using innovative therapies and drugs. If you are looking for colon cancer stage 4 treatment options in Germany, you should visit the Booking Health website.
Here you can find the country’s leading hospitals, check prices, read reviews, choose the most suitable clinic, and make an appointment for your preferred dates.
How is oligometastatic colorectal cancer treated?
In modern medicine, single metastases are no longer considered an obstacle to surgery for colon cancer. They can occur in the liver, lungs, brain, and distant lymph nodes. If only one anatomical zone is affected, doctors can offer the patient a combined surgery to remove the metastases and the primary tumor. While one team of surgeons operates on the colon, another team performs a procedure to remove part of the lung or metastatic brain tumors.
Colon resection followed by control of metastatic tumors by other means is also possible: for example, chemoembolization is best for the liver and radiation therapy for the brain.
How is colon cancer with peritoneal carcinomatosis treated?
Peritoneal carcinomatosis is the spread of tumors throughout the abdomen by implantation. Cancer cells spread throughout the peritoneum and tumors grow from them.
This type of cancer progression is severe and has a poor prognosis. However, it can also be successfully treated: physicians abroad perform cytoreductive surgery with hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC).
In cytoreductive surgery, doctors examine the entire abdomen through an abdominal incision and find and remove tumors that are visible to the eye. They aim to perform a complete cytoreductive surgery if possible.
After surgery, micrometastases and cancer cell clusters still remain in the peritoneal cavity. HIPEC is performed to destroy them. With a drainage system, the abdominal cavity is rinsed with a heated solution of chemotherapy drugs for one and a half hours. This is an intraoperative procedure that is performed before the wound is closed, immediately after tumor resection. It significantly improves the patient’s prognosis.
How are liver metastases from colorectal cancer treated?
For some patients, the main problem with colorectal cancer is metastatic liver involvement. Resection is considered the optimal treatment, but few patients can have this complex surgery.
Other methods are more common:
- Chemoembolization is an endovascular procedure performed from inside the blood vessels to block the arteries feeding the tumor with chemotherapy-loaded microspheres
- Radioembolization is a similar procedure in which arteries are occluded with yttrium-90 microspheres
- Ablation is minimally invasive destruction of small metastases by radiofrequency, microwave, or other energy
- Hepatic arterial infusion (HAI) is the placement of a system in the patient’s body that helps deliver chemotherapy drugs into the hepatic artery that supplies blood to the tumor
Systemic treatment for colorectal cancer
In oncology, local treatments are always combined with systemic therapy when the malignancy is at an advanced stage. Colon cancer is treated with chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy. Patients are prescribed personalized treatment regimens based on their diagnostic results.
If you want to undergo colon cancer treatment abroad, you can use Booking Health to choose a clinic. Germany offers innovative treatments, including:
- Combined and cytoreductive surgeries
- Various intraperitoneal chemotherapy options
- Chemoembolization and radioembolization
- Hepatic arterial infusion
- Cancer vaccines
In addition, in Germany, you can clarify the diagnosis, receive palliative care, quality care and recovery, and participate in clinical trials of new therapies.
You can get advice from a medical tourism expert and help in choosing a clinic when you leave your request on the Booking Health website. Your health will be in the safe hands of the best specialists in the world. Booking Health will help you organize your trip and provide you with constant support throughout your stay abroad.