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When thinking about your treatment, your doctors will take into account:
- how big your cancer is
- whether it has already spread to other body organs, and if so, which
- your general health
- your wishes.
Your doctors will tell you about the risks, benefits and side effects of the treatments being offered, and how they may affect your life afterwards.
You will then need to agree to the treatment before it can start. This is called giving your consent. Don’t be afraid to ask questions if there is anything you don’t understand.
The treatments you may be offered are:
Surgery
This is the main treatment for cancer of the vulva. If the cancer is quite small, your doctor is likely to recommend an operation called wide local excision. The aim is to remove all of the cancer and – for extra safety - some of the healthy tissue around it.
If your cancer is bigger it is more likely to have got into the lymph nodes. As well as removing the cancer from the vulva your doctor may want to take out the lymph nodes in the groin, to try to stop the cancer spreading around your body. Rarely, the lymph nodes in the pelvis may be taken out too.
Your surgeon will not remove more tissue than s/he has to – but if your cancer is quite large, you may need to have quite a lot of tissue removed. If your labia have to be taken away (these are the folds of skin around your vagina) the operation is called a radical vulvectomy.
Radiotherapy
If your lymph nodes show signs of cancer you are likely to have radiotherapy after your operation. This is to try to get rid of any cancer cells left behind after surgery. This treatment is not often used in the treatment of cancer of the vulva.
Radiotherapy uses radiation to kill cancer cells. It is usually given from outside the body, and a machine directs high energy x-rays at the cancer. This is called external beam radiotherapy.
Rarely, if a patient is not well enough for an operation, radiotherapy may be offered instead of surgery.
Radiotherapy can also be used to help patients whose cancer can’t be cured – it can help to relieve symptoms and prolong good quality life.
For more information about treatments, go to our cancer treatments section.
