Your Goals for Therapy Your oncology team will be working with you to meet your goals for therapy. It’s important that you think through how aggressive you want to be in fighting the cancer and how you value that aggressiveness vs the tradeoffs in terms of convenience, quality of life, and other factors that matter to you. Each therapy has its plusses and minuses in terms of how well it works, the side effects, how it is given (and how convenient that is for you), cost, and impact on family planning. These are all points to consider, and the rest of this document provides much more information on these topics. Beyond the immediate decision making regarding your treatment, you have a lot of other decisions to make about your future. To learn more about this type of planning, see the SURVIVORSHIP AND ADVANCED CARE PLANNING section at the end of this document.
WEIGHING ALL THE FACTORS In order to make decisions about treatment, you and your oncology team will take into consideration all of the factors described above: your scans and test results; the extent, pace and location of your cancer; your overall health; and your goals. Additionally, you and your team will consider what we know about how well each treatment works, the costs, and the side effects. Graphic 3 shows some questions you and your oncology team will consider in this process.
Stage IV Melanoma Treatment Options • Making the Decision That’s Right for You Copyright © 2022 AIM at Melanoma Foundation and Terranova Medica, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Document Released January 26, 2022.
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