Anton Bilchik MD Talks about Palliative Care

Anton Bilchik MD Talks about Palliative Care

Anton Bilchik MD is one of the nation’s leading cancer surgeons who save countless lives each year. Sadly, sometimes surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, and other cancer treatments cannot stop the growth and spread of cancer. Despite the best efforts of Anton Bilchik and other cancer specialists, cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States, claiming nearly 1,600 people each day. In these cases, doctors provide palliative care to make the patient more comfortable.

Palliative care is a specialized field of medicine, provided by physicians, nurses, and social workers who are experts in addressing pain, stress, and other symptoms of cancer. Palliative care relieves symptoms, but it does not cure the cancer. Sometimes palliative care includes the use of drugs to ease pain or nausea, for example. Radiation, chemotherapy, and surgery also ease symptoms.

Doctors give palliative-care chemotherapy, increasingly, as a patient nears death. Chemotherapy seems to help patients with lung cancer and pancreatic cancers to live significantly longer, while chemotherapy for colon cancer makes a marginal difference. Chemotherapy does not extend life for those with breast or prostate cancers.

Palliative surgery improves the quality of life for those with end-stage cancers. About 80 percent of cancer patients experience two or more episodes of pain; surgery can reduce this pain. Palliative surgery can include the removal of cancerous tissue, clearance of an obstruction, or the implementation of a nerve block to control pain.

Contact Anton Bilchik to learn more about how palliative surgery can reduce pain and to address other symptoms in the final stages of cancer.