Cancer Treatment

Cancer treatment at Banner MD Anderson

At Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center, our comprehensive, cutting-edge cancer care is tailored to your needs. Our expert teams use some of the latest treatments to help with better outcomes and improve your quality of life. 

Treatment approaches for cancer can include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy and advanced targeted therapies. Many cancers respond best to a combination of therapies, like chemotherapy with immunotherapy or radiation with surgery. Your health care provider will explain how combining different treatments may work best for you.

Cancer treatment options depend on:

• The type of cancer
• Its stage (how far it has spread)
• Where it’s located
• Your overall health and medical history
• Results from testing the genes and molecules in the cancer
• Potential side effects and how they might affect your daily life
• Your goals of care

During treatment, your health care provider will partner with you through each step, ensuring you understand the procedures, timelines and possible outcomes.

Standard cancer treatments

These treatments are widely used because they work to treat many types of cancer: 

• Surgery: Surgery removes cancerous tumors. It may be used alone or along with other treatments.
• Radiation therapy: High-energy beams target and treat cancer cells. Radiation therapy can be used before surgery to shrink tumors or after surgery to get rid of any remaining cancer cells.
• Chemotherapy: These drugs destroy cancer cells and help prevent them from growing. Chemotherapy is often combined with other treatments. 
• Hormone therapy: These treatments block or lower hormone levels to slow or stop the growth of cancers that need hormones, like breast and prostate cancer.

Advanced and targeted therapies

These newer treatments may target cancer more precisely and cause fewer side effects:

• Immunotherapy: This treatment helps your immune system recognize and eliminate cancer cells. A type called CAR-T cell therapy reprograms your immune cells, so they can defend against cancer better.
• Targeted therapy: Also called precision medicine, targeted therapy focuses on genetic changes or proteins that help cancer grow. It may not damage healthy cells as much as other treatments. 

Supportive and emerging therapies

These methods can help monitor your symptoms or manage side effects:

• Active surveillance (watchful waiting): For slow-growing cancers, regular monitoring without treatment right away may be the best approach. 
• Stem cell (bone marrow) transplant: This treatment is often used for blood cancers. It restores healthy blood cells after chemotherapy or radiation.
• Palliative and supportive care: Your oncologist and other specialists help you manage your symptoms and side effects to improve your quality of life during and after treatment.

Experimental and alternative approaches

You may qualify for additional treatment options:

• Clinical trials: Clinical trials allow your team to test new, promising therapies while still providing you with standard treatments. With clinical trials, you may be able to get new treatments before they are widely available.
• Ablation therapy and photodynamic therapy: These treatments use extreme temperatures or light-sensitive drugs to destroy cancer cells. They may be options for certain types of cancer.
• Hyperthermia therapy: This treatment uses heat to target and eliminate cancer cells. It is sometimes combined with other treatments.

How treatments work together

Some treatments help to overcome cancer better when you combine them: 

• Chemotherapy and immunotherapy: Chemotherapy makes cancer cells weaker, so then the immune system can attack these more vulnerable cells more effectively. 
• Radiation and surgery: Radiation can shrink tumors before surgery or target any remaining cancer cells after surgery.
• Targeted therapy and hormone therapy: For hormone-driven cancers, targeted therapy can help block some cancer-growth signals.

Why choose Banner MD Anderson?

At Banner MD Anderson, our cancer treatment teams offer nationally recognized cancer care. We use innovative treatments and approaches to tailor our care to your needs. Whether you need standard therapies, advanced treatments or supportive care, we’re here for you every step of the way.