The mother of all cancer surgeries is Cytoreductive Surgery (CRS) that is combined with Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (HIPEC).
The mother of all cancer surgeries also known as MOAS is a grueling, 10 to 16 hour procedure that is used mainly for advanced abdominal cancers like appendiceal cancer and pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP).
For cytoreductive surgery (CRS) surgeons open your abdomen and meticulously strip out your abdominal lining (peritoneum) and remove all tumors that are visible, which often requires the removal of multiple organs.
And while the patient is still on the operating table, heated chemotherapy drugs are also pumped directly into their abdominal cavity and are circulated to kill any remaining microscopic cancer cells.
To eradicate all visible disease, surgeons might remove your appendix, spleen, gallbladder, ovaries, uterus, fallopian tubes and even parts of your bowel or stomach.
The mother of all surgeries is so extreme because it's one of the most physically demanding procedures in oncology, and the recovery process can also take up to a year, and patients often also require temporary stomas and it carries a high risk of complications, but also offers a potentially curative or life prolonging option for people with rare cancers that have spread throughout their abdomen.
The cancers that are not curable are advanced or metastatic forms of mesothelioma, glioblastoma brain cancer and pancreatic cancer.
These cancers are extremely difficult to cure and are often considered to be terminal when they are diagnosed late.
But whether a cancer is curable or incurable also depends heavily on how early the cancer is found and how far it has spread.
Aggressive cancer cells can also mutate and resist standard cancer treatments such as radiation or chemotherapy.
Brain tumors like glioblastoma also grow in sensitive areas where surgery can't remove all tissue safely.
And cancers like ovarian cancer and pancreatic cancer also grow silently with few early warning signs, which means that they often spread before they are discovered.
Even when the cancer cannot be cured fully, modern medicine still offers treatments that can shrink tumors, ease pain and even extend life.
And many aggressive cancers also have a much higher chance of being cured if they are caught in stage 1 or stage 2 before they spread.
Stage 4 cancer is not 100% death although when you have stage 4 cancer it's at it's most advanced stage and most serious stage, which means that the cancer is harder to treat or cure.
Many types of cancer are hard to cure completely, but new treatments for cancer help many people live for months, years or even decades.
Stage 4 cancer, just means that the cancer has moved from where it originally started to other parts of the body, like the bones, liver or lungs, but stage 4 cancer does not mean death is right away or soon.
Doctors now treat some stage 4 cancers like a long term illness that can often be managed.
Treatments like immunotherapy and targeted therapy help your body fight the cancer better than older treatment methods for cancer.
And these cancer treatments can also shrink tumors and slow down how fast the cancer grows.
Some cancers also respond much better to modern cancer treatments in stage 4 than others and a person's age and general physical strength and health also affect how well they respond to the cancer treatment.
However stage 4 can sometimes be terminal depending on the condition.
Stage 4 such just indicates where the cancer has spread in the body (metastatic), and terminal indicates that the prognosis of the illness or cancer is not curable and eventually will result in death.
But stage 4 is not always terminal and many people with stage 4 illnesses like stage 4 cancer live for years.
But terminal illness or terminal cancer is what means that someone has a life expectancy of 6 months or less.
Stage 4 is just the measure of physical spread of the cancer.
It simply means that the cancer in stage 4 has spread from it's original site (primary tumor) to distant organs or tissues in the body.
While stage 4 cancer is often considered to be incurable, the main goal with treatment for stage 4 cancer is to extend life and manage symptoms like using systemic therapies such as targeted therapies, chemotherapy and immunotherapy and even palliative care.
The prognosis for people with stage 4 cancer drastically varies depending on the type of cancer.
Take for example stage 4 testicular cancer or even some types of lymphoma cancers are highly curable, although other cancers are treated as a long term, manageable illness.
Terminal is what refers to the cancer or illness that can't be cured and is expected to result in the persons death, often within 6 months or less.
When the cancer is deemed terminal treatment shifts away entirely from shrinking or controlling the tumor or cancer and solely focuses on end of life comfort and quality of life for the person.
The word terminal is usually designated when doctors determine that a persons life expectancy is limited, often 6 months or less.
Having a terminal diagnosis can also occur at earlier stages if the cancer is aggressive, but the word terminal is mostly frequently applied in advanced cases of cancer.