Editing Metastasis (section)

== Management ==
Treatment and survival is determined, to a great extent, by whether or not a cancer remains localized or spreads to other locations in the body. If the cancer metastasizes to other tissues or organs it usually dramatically increases a patient's likelihood of death. Some cancers—such as some forms of [[leukemia]], a cancer of the blood, or [[Brain tumor|malignancies in the brain]]—can kill without spreading at all.

Once a cancer has metastasized it may still be treated with [[radiosurgery]], [[chemotherapy]], [[radiation therapy]], [[biological therapy]], [[hormone therapy]], [[surgery]], or a combination of these interventions ("multimodal therapy"). The choice of treatment depends on many factors, including the type of primary cancer, the size and location of the metastases, the patient's age and general health, and the types of treatments used previously. In patients diagnosed with CUP it is often still possible to treat the disease even when the primary tumor cannot be located.

Current treatments are rarely able to cure metastatic cancer though some tumors, such as [[testicular cancer]] and [[thyroid cancer]], are usually curable.

[[Palliative care]], care aimed at improving the quality of life of people with major illness, has been recommended as part of management programs for metastasis.<ref name="Irwin_2013">{{Cite journal |vauthors=Irwin KE, Greer JA, Khatib J, Temel JS, Pirl WF |date=February 2013 |title=Early palliative care and metastatic non-small cell lung cancer: potential mechanisms of prolonged survival |journal=Chronic Respiratory Disease |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=35–47 |doi=10.1177/1479972312471549 |pmid=23355404 |s2cid=6743524}}</ref> Results from a systematic review of the literature on radiation therapy for brain metastases found that  there is little evidence to inform [[Comparative effectiveness research|comparative effectiveness]] and [[Patient-centered outcomes|patient-centered]] outcomes on quality of life, functional status, and cognitive effects.<ref>{{Cite journal |vauthors=Garsa A, Jang JK, Baxi S, Chen C, Akinniranye O, Hall O, Larkin J, Motala A, Hempel S |date=2021 |title=Radiation Therapy for Brain Metastases: A Systematic Review |journal=Practical Radiation Oncology |volume=11 |issue=5 |pages=354–365 |doi=10.1016/j.prro.2021.04.002 |pmid=34119447}}</ref>