• Question: Why cant you just operate on the person with cancer and cut the cancerous lump/cells off?

    Asked by Tom D to Greg on 9 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Greg Melia

      Greg Melia answered on 9 Mar 2016:

      Hi Tom,

      Sometimes you can do that. First you need to find out where the cancer is though,which is why you need imaging.

      The problem is that sometimes, the cancer isn’t in a form that can just be cut out. Think of blood cancer: you can’t just cut that out: https://www.macmillan.org.uk/information-and-support/blood-cancer

      Sometimes, the cancer spreads so there are several bits of cancer all over the body, and you can’t cut all of them out. Also, sometimes the cancer becomes quite integrated with the surrounding tissue and puts out lots of little arms, so it’s very hard to get all of it out. If you don’t get absolutely all of it out, the cancer that remains will grow back. That’s why after surgery, cancer patients often get radio and/or chemotherapy too: to kill any cancer that’s left.

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