question: Is it possible to remove cancer through surgery or is it only possible to remove tumors but not cancer?
comment: Tumors are clumps of cancerous cells. "Cancer" is generally the ailment of being afflicted by cancerous cells; we can't surgically remove all "cancer" from a patient because manipulating individual cells is well beyond the capabilities of any surgeon. Conceptually they are physical objects which could be manipulated but it is beyond our practical ability at this time.
passages: In addition to removal of the primary tumor, surgery is often necessary for staging, e.g. determining the extent of the disease and whether it has metastasized to regional lymph nodes. Staging is a major determinant of prognosis and of the need for adjuvant therapy. Occasionally, surgery is necessary to control symptoms, such as spinal cord compression or bowel obstruction. This is referred to as palliative treatment.
   Surgery is the primary method of treatment for most isolated, solid cancers and may play a role in palliation and prolongation of survival. It is typically an important part of definitive diagnosis and staging of tumors, as biopsies are usually required. In localized cancer, surgery typically attempts to remove the entire mass along with, in certain cases, the lymph nodes in the area. For some types of cancer this is sufficient to eliminate the cancer.
  
  Section::::Management.:Palliative care.
   No method is standard for all forms of CUP, but chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormone therapy, and surgery may be used alone or in combination to treat patients who have CUP. Even when the cancer is unlikely to be cured, treatment may help the patient live longer or improve the patient’s quality of life. Radiation may be used to shrink a variety of local tumors. However, the potential side effects of the treatment must be considered along with the potential benefits.
  
  In CUP to secondary neck nodes, surgery followed by external beam radiotherapy is sufficient.
   Section::::Treatment.:Mastectomy.
  
  There is no evidence that mastectomy decreases the risk of death over a lumpectomy. Mastectomy; however, may decrease the rate of the DCIS or invasive cancer occurring in the same location.
   BULLET::::3. A 55 years old man with a huge watermelon size tumor in his chest underwent successful Robotic Surgical Resection, the first of its kind in India and has returned to normal life.
  
  BULLET::::4. 53 years old lady with Thymoma and multiple tumors in the chest underwent a 12 hour long complex operation using HIPEC, first time in India.
  
  BULLET::::5. A 48 years old gentleman with a large tumor in his wind pipe, who was almost choking to death had successful removal of the tumour under ECMO support, first time in India.
   Surgical resection and radiation therapy are the mainstays of treatment for most head and neck cancers and remain the standard of care in most cases. For small primary cancers without regional metastases (stage I or II), wide surgical excision alone or curative radiation therapy alone is used. More extensive primary tumors, or those with regional metastases (stage III or IV), planned combinations of pre- or postoperative radiation and complete surgical excision are generally used. More recently, as historical survival and control rates are recognized as less than satisfactory, there has been an emphasis on the use of various induction or concomitant chemotherapy regimens.
   While surgery reduces the risk of subsequent cancer, many people never develop cancer even without treatment and the associated side effects. There is no evidence comparing surgery with watchful waiting and some feel watchful waiting may be a reasonable option in certain cases.
  
  Section::::Treatment.:Radiation therapy.
   Many cancers can be prevented by not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, not drinking too much alcohol, eating plenty of vegetables, fruits and whole grains, vaccination against certain infectious diseases, not eating too much processed and red meat and avoiding too much sunlight exposure. Early detection through screening is useful for cervical and colorectal cancer. The benefits of screening in breast cancer are controversial. Cancer is often treated with some combination of radiation therapy, surgery, chemotherapy and targeted therapy. Pain and symptom management are an important part of care. Palliative care is particularly important in people with advanced disease. The chance of survival depends on the type of cancer and extent of disease at the start of treatment. In children under 15 at diagnosis, the five-year survival rate in the developed world is on average 80%. For cancer in the United States, the average five-year survival rate is 66%.
   Sometimes, cancer is located in a place where standard tests cannot detect it. In this case, doctors must go into surgery and look for the cancerous mass manually. This procedure, which is what is commonly associated with exploratory surgery, is not used for treatment at all. Instead, it is used chiefly to identify the location of the tumor and the extent of its damage. If a tumor is found, a biopsy is performed and tests are run to see what type of cancer was found.
  
  Section::::Exploratory surgery in animals.
   Surgeries are used to diagnose and treat CNS tumours. Removal of tumour tissues helps decrease the spread of tumours around the brain. Surgery is often conducted to get a sample of the tumour for a biopsy, removing the tumour or treating symptoms caused due to the tumour. Some tumours such as anaplastic astrocytomas or glioblastomas may not be treated surgically. However, surgery can reduce the size of the tumour, thus requiring fewer sessions of radiation or chemotherapy. Surgery may also provide relief from some of the symptoms caused by these tumours. Symptoms such as headache, nausea and vomiting, that are caused due the built up pressure in the brain due to the tumour can be resolved by surgically removing the tumour. After the surgery, chemotherapy or radiation therapy may be conducted to destroy the remaining cancer cells.
   The treatment of colorectal cancer can be aimed at cure or palliation. The decision on which aim to adopt depends on various factors, including the person's health and preferences, as well as the stage of the tumor. When colorectal cancer is caught early, surgery can be curative. However, when it is detected at later stages (for which metastases are present), this is less likely and treatment is often directed at palliation, to relieve symptoms caused by the tumour and keep the person as comfortable as possible.
  
  Section::::Treatment.:Surgery.
   CO2 laser surgery is also another form of treatment. Transoral laser microsurgery allows surgeons to remove tumors from the voice box with no external incisions. It also allows access to tumors that are not reachable with robotic surgery. During the surgery, surgeon and pathologist work together to assess the adequacy of excision (“margin status”), minimizing the amount of normal tissue removed or damaged. This technique helps give the person as much speech and swallowing function as possible after surgery.
  
  Section::::Management.:Radiation therapy.
   For isolated, nonmetastatic lung tumors, surgical resection remains the reference standard for treatment. However, many patients are precluded from surgery due to poor cardiopulmonary function, advanced age, or extensive disease burden. For these patients, minimally invasive therapeutic options such as radiofrequency ablation, microwave ablation, and cryoablation have emerged as possible alternatives. 
   Sometimes it is possible or necessary to provide relief for cancer caused nausea and vomiting through palliative surgical intervention. Surgery is however not routinely carried out when there are poor prognostic criteria for surgical intervention such as intra-abdominal carcinomatosis, poor performance status and massive ascites. The surgical approach proves beneficial in affected people with operable lesions, a life expectancy greater than 2 months and good performance status. Often a malignant bowel obstruction is the cause of the symptoms in which case the purpose of palliative surgery is to relieve the symptoms of bowel obstruction by means of several procedures including: 
   If the cancer is found at a very early stage, it may be removed during a colonoscopy. For people with localized cancer, the preferred treatment is complete surgical removal with adequate margins, with the attempt of achieving a cure. This can either be done by an open laparotomy or sometimes laparoscopically. The colon may then be reconnected or a person may have a colostomy.
   In theory, non-hematological cancers can be cured if entirely removed by surgery, but this is not always possible. When the cancer has metastasized to other sites in the body prior to surgery, complete surgical excision is usually impossible. In the Halstedian model of cancer progression, tumors grow locally, then spread to the lymph nodes, then to the rest of the body. This has given rise to the popularity of local-only treatments such as surgery for small cancers. Even small localized tumors are increasingly recognized as possessing metastatic potential.
   Currently, there are several surgical approaches to mastectomy, and the type that a person decides to undergo (or whether she or he will decide instead to have a lumpectomy) depends on factors such as the size, location, and behavior of the tumor (if one is present), whether or not the surgery is prophylactic, and whether the person intends to undergo reconstructive surgery.
   BULLET::::- <4 cm mass: surgery to remove the main tumor mass and to sample the lymph nodes in the axilla. The stage of the tumor is ascertained after this first surgery. Adjuvant therapy (i.e., treatment after surgery) may include a combination of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormonal therapy (e.g., tamoxifen) and/or targeted therapy (e.g., trastuzumab). More surgery is occasionally needed to complete the removal of the initial tumor or to remove recurrences.
   Jerri Nielsen was the sole physician on duty at the U.S. National Science Foundation Amundsen–Scott Antarctic research station in 1999 when she found a lump on her breast. She was forced to biopsy the lump herself. Her experience made international news and was the basis for her autobiography, "Ice Bound". The lump was found to be cancerous, so she self-administered chemotherapeutic agents. She remained cancer-free for several years but died in 2009 after her cancer reappeared and spread to her brain.
  
  Section::::Self-trepanation.
   The treatment is done to reduce pressure on the brain caused by any cerebrospinal fluid buildup and to reduce the number of cancer cells causing the pressure. For the best care, patients should see a physician who regularly treats leptomeningeal cancer and is most up-to-date on medicines that penetrate the blood-brain barrier, how to treat the symptoms, and clinical trials that might include patients with leptomeningeal cancer.
  
  Section::::Prognosis.
   Examples of surgical procedures for cancer include mastectomy for breast cancer, prostatectomy for prostate cancer, and lung cancer surgery for non-small cell lung cancer. The goal of the surgery can be either the removal of only the tumor, or the entire organ. A single cancer cell is invisible to the naked eye but can regrow into a new tumor, a process called recurrence. For this reason, the pathologist will examine the surgical specimen to determine if a margin of healthy tissue is present, thus decreasing the chance that microscopic cancer cells are left in the patient.
   Treating PPB depends on the size and location of the tumor, whether the cancer has spread, and the child's overall health. Surgery is the main treatment for PPB. The main goal of surgery is to remove the tumor. If the tumor is too large to be completely removed, or if it's not possible to completely remove the tumor, surgery may be performed after chemotherapy. Because PPB can return after treatment, regular screening for possible recurrence should continue for 48 to 60 months, after diagnosis.
  
  Section::::History.
  
  Pleuropulmonary blastoma was first described in 1988.
  
  An international registry has been established.
   Many treatment options for cancer exist. The primary ones include surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, targeted therapy and palliative care. Which treatments are used depends on the type, location and grade of the cancer as well as the patient's health and preferences. The treatment intent may or may not be curative.
  
  Section::::Management.:Chemotherapy.
   Surgery with the intention of a cure is only possible in around one-fifth (20%) of new cases. Although CT scans help, in practice it can be difficult to determine whether the tumor can be fully removed (its "resectability"), and it may only become apparent during surgery that it is not possible to successfully remove the tumor without damaging other vital tissues. Whether or not surgical resection can be offered depends on various factors, including the precise extent of local anatomical adjacency to, or involvement of, the venous or arterial blood vessels, as well as surgical expertise and a careful consideration of projected post-operative recovery. The age of the person is not in itself a reason not to operate, but their general performance status needs to be adequate for a major operation.
   Treatment options include surgery to remove the tumor, medications, and radiation therapy. Surgery is usually the preferred treatment; the smaller the tumor, the more likely surgery will be curative. If surgery is contraindicated or not curative, somatostatin analogues or GH receptor antagonists may be used. Radiation therapy may be used if neither surgery nor medications are completely effective. Without treatment, life expectancy is reduced by 10 years; with treatment, life expectancy is not reduced.
  
raw_presuppositions: Possible to remove cancer through surgery. Cancer can theoretically be removed from the body.
raw_corrections: It is beyond our practical ability at this time.  Cancer is an ailment and thus is not anything physical that can be removed from the body.