Anal Cancer Treatment
Your treatment options may include standard treatments and treatments that are being tested in clinical trials. When clinical trials show that a new treatment is better than the standard treatment, the new treatment may become the standard treatment. You may want to think about taking part in a clinical trial.
Current treatments include:
- Surgery (to remove the cancer)
- Radiation therapy (killing cancer cells with high-dose x-rays)
- Chemotherapy (killing cancer cells with medications)
- Combination therapy (at least two of the above)
Currently, combination treatment is the standard for most people with anal cancer. Most anal carcinomas are treated effectively, and should tumors recur, they can be successfully treated if they are caught early.
Most people treated for anal cancer do not have a colostomy. If your tumor does not respond to combination therapy or if it recurs after treatment, you may have to have an abdominoperineal resection (APR). An APR will remove your rectum and anus and create a colostomy (bringing the end of the large intestine through the abdominal wall so stool moves and drains into a bag attached to the abdomen).
