Info
Adjuvant treatment
Treatment
What it means
Treatment given after surgery or after the main treatment to reduce the risk of recurrence. It may be chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy or targeted therapy, depending on the type of cancer.
Related terms
The terms below often appear alongside this one. Each definition is right here, so you do not have to look elsewhere.
- Recurrence
- The return of the disease after a period in which the cancer was absent or controlled. Recurrence can appear locally, regionally or at a distance, and it is one of the reasons why oncological monitoring remains important after treatment.
- Androgen deprivation therapy (ADT)
- A hormonal treatment that lowers the level of testosterone in the body or blocks its effect, used in hormone-sensitive prostate cancer. It can be done with medication (injections) or surgically.
- Aromatase inhibitor
- A class of hormone therapy drugs that block the production of estrogen in postmenopausal women, used in hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. Examples: letrozole, anastrozole.
Other terms in “Treatment”
Glossary definitions are written for patients by the OncoDots team and go through internal medical review. They explain terms; they do not establish a diagnosis and do not recommend a treatment.