Princess Kate with cancer: what is “preventive chemotherapy”?

The Princess of Wales said she had begun treatment for the cancer she was diagnosed with after an operation in January.

“I’m in the first stage of treatment.” Princess Kate revealed, Friday March 22, that she had cancer and had started “preventative chemotherapy”, after one “major abdominal surgery” suffered in January. The wife of the heir to the British throne did not give further details, calling for respect for her private life. This announcement created astonishment and raised many questions, in particular about the nature of his illness and its treatment.

There “preventive chemotherapy” is more commonly called adjuvant chemotherapy. This is an anti-cancer medical treatment, administered in addition to surgery to avoid any risk of cancer recurrence in the affected area or the spread of possible cancer cells elsewhere in the body. This type of treatment is rather reserved for cancers localized at an early stage of the disease. In her message, Princess Kate explains that it was only after her abdominal surgery that tests revealed cancer.

“A security treatment”

“It is rare that surgery alone is enough, except in cases of very small tumors. But if it is large and there are affected lymph nodes, we will do additional treatments”specifies at Parisian Nicolas Girard, head of the medical oncology department at the Institut Curie in Paris. “Adjuvant treatment is a safety treatment”specifies the website of the National Cancer Institute.

Other types of chemotherapy exist. These treatments are prescribed to patients depending on the type of tumor and the stage of progression of the disease, recalls the National Cancer Institute. “Neoadjuvant” chemotherapies target the tumor directly, before an intervention. They are intended for “stop its progression or, sometimes, reduce the size of the tumor in order to allow conservative surgery”details the website of the Geneva university hospitals. Metastatic chemotherapies target cancer cells that have settled on other organs or in other parts of the body. There are also palliative chemotherapies, administered to control the effects of the tumor, without hope of making it disappear.

Chemotherapy treatments are numerous and diverse. Depending on the organs affected and the patients, treatment protocols can last from a few weeks to several months, and are administered in the form of injections or oral tablets. Their side effects vary depending on the person, but generally lead to fatigue, nausea, risk of infection, loss of appetite and weight…