My mother is 78 years old and was just diagnosed with osteosarcoma cancer in her jawbone. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's last year too. Since eating is one of the things she enjoys the most, we decided not to do surgery and treat her with radiation and chemotherapy. What is the best treatment without surgery? Will chemotherapy help to reduce the pain?
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Expert Answer by Andrew Putnam
Andrew Putnam, M.D. is the director of the Palliative Care Program at Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and Georgetown University.For many situations where cancer causes pain, if chemotherapy or radiation can help to shrink the cancer, the pain will be reduced. It is important to ask her oncologist the likelihood of shrinking the tumor with a particular treatment and compare it with the likelihood of severe side effects. But chemotherapy can reduce pain if it shrinks the cancer. If your mother's Alzheimer's progresses it may become more difficult to evaluate her pain.
Thank you so much for your answer, she didn't start the chemotherapy yet but will start soon and as soon as I see the results I will post what happened
Thanks again and God bless you.
