About advanced cancer

What treatments are available?

Your treatment options will depend on where the cancer started, how far and where it has spread to, and whether it is hormone dependent or has certain genetic changes. Your doctor will consider your symptoms and general health and take into account your preferences when recommending treatment.

Treatments to control the cancer and relieve side effects may include chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery, targeted therapy, hormone therapy and immunotherapy – used alone or in combination.

Some people join clinical trials to try new treatments.

Treatments can be used for different reasons, so talk to your healthcare team about the aim of each one.

How will advanced cancer affect my day-to-day life?

Some people with advanced cancer can stay reasonably well and continue usual activities – working, playing sport and socialising – for a long time. Other people may need to focus on their health. It will depend on how you feel, and how cancer or treatment affects various aspects of your life.

Do I need to think about palliative care?

Some people feel anxious about having palliative care, or avoid it altogether, because they think it’s only for people who are at the end of their life. But that’s not the case at all. In fact, studies show that starting palliative care early can help you to feel better for longer.

The goal is to help you maintain your quality of life at any stage of the illness. By offering a range of services and treatment, palliative care can help you live as fully and as comfortably as possible. It does this by looking after your physical, emotional, cultural, social and/or spiritual needs. For example, palliative care can include strategies to help you to manage pain, move around, eat well, and cope with your feelings.

Palliative care, which is sometimes called supportive care, might be something you choose to use now and then, or it may be ongoing. It’s now very common for people to use palliative care for several years.

There’s a range of health professionals involved in providing multidisciplinary palliative care, from doctors and nurses to physiotherapists, social workers, occupational therapists, dietitians and psychologists – even volunteers and carers.

Thinking about what is most important to you can guide palliative care services. For some people that may be help going travelling; for others it’s about spending more time with family. Where possible, help can be provided to focus on what is important to you.

Support for families and carers is also offered through palliative care services.

What can I expect in the future?

Not all people with cancer – even advanced cancer – will die from it. For some people, improved treatments can keep advanced cancer under control for months or years. Sometimes other health issues (such as heart disease) become more serious than the cancer.

When told they have advanced cancer, many people will want an idea of how long they may have left to live. Others may prefer not to know or even talk about it. It’s a very personal decision. If you want to know the expected outcome (prognosis) of the cancer, talk to your doctor. It is a difficult question to answer because everyone is different. Your doctor can only give you an estimate based on what usually happens to people in your situation. The actual time that you have could be longer or shorter – it’s not possible to know for sure.

This not knowing, or feeling of uncertainty, can be one of the most challenging aspects of living with advanced cancer.

When faced with the thought of dying, people often think about what they want to do in the time they have left. They may begin to live day by day, plan a big trip or do practical tasks, such as preparing a will.

For more information, see Facing end of life and listen to Cancer Council's podcast series The Thing About Advanced Cancer.

The prognosis is based on statistics, and it’s entirely possible that you will be on the good side of those statistics, and make it way beyond whatever your oncologist tells you.

John