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Palliative treatment is care for, and control of, your symptoms, rather than the treatment of the disease itself. It may include palliative chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery.
Some patients are too ill to cope with these powerful treatments, or the cancer is not responding to them. In this case, palliative care aims to give good pain and symptom control by other means, including the use of conventional drugs to reduce inflammation and pain.
Our palliative care section of the website, gives more detailed information about palliative care.