How is cancer surgery used in treatment?

Common reasons you might undergo cancer surgery include:

• Cancer prevention. If you have a high risk of developing cancer in certain tissues or organs, your doctor may recommend removing those tissues or organs before cancer develops.

  For example, if you are born with a genetic condition called familial adenomatous polyposis, your doctor may use cancer surgery to remove your colon and rectum because you have a high risk of developing colon cancer.

• Diagnosis. Your doctor may use a form of cancer surgery to remove all or part of a tumor — allowing the tumor to be studied under a microscope — to determine whether the growth is cancerous (malignant) or noncancerous (benign).
• Staging. Cancer surgery helps your doctor define how advanced your cancer is, called its stage. Surgery allows your doctor to evaluate the size of your tumor and determine whether it's traveled to your lymph nodes. Additional tests might be necessary to gauge your cancer's stage.
• Primary treatment. For many tumors, cancer surgery is the best chance for a cure, especially if the cancer is localized and hasn't spread.
• Debulking. When it's not possible to remove all of a cancerous tumor — for example, because doing so may severely harm an organ — your doctor may remove as much as possible (debulking) in order to make chemotherapy or radiation more effective.
• Relieving symptoms or side effects. Sometimes surgery is used to improve your quality of life rather than to treat the cancer itself — for example, to relieve pain caused by a tumor that's pressing on a nerve or bone or to remove a tumor that's blocking your intestine.

Surgery is often combined with other cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiation. Whether you opt to undergo additional cancer treatment depends on your type of cancer, its stage and your overall health status.