Kate Middleton's cancer diagnosis: Why did she undergo 'preventive chemotherapy?'

The Princess of Wales Kate Middleton's recent disclosure that cancer was discovered in her body, just a month after King Charles' cancer diagnosis, has raised a lot of questions. In her video announcement that came after weeks of speculation spread on social media about her whereabouts and health since she was hospitalized in January for an unspecified abdominal surgery, Kate said her surgery was successful. She revealed that tests after the operation showed that cancer was present in her body, though she did not specify the type. She went on to add that her medical team advised her to undergo preventive chemotherapy and now, she is in the early stages of the treatment. 

What's special about the process
Preventive chemotherapy is the process of administering medication to prevent the occurrence of a disease. If the risk of infection is high, medicines are given periodically, even if the individuals aren't affected at that point. How often the medicine is administered depends on many factors like the type of disease, resources available and more. Chemotherapy can be preventive to future cancer occurrence in certain types of cancers, especially in early diagnoses say experts. While speaking to a news portal, a US-based medical oncologist Matthew Stickland said that it is also not uncommon to pursue surgery first as part of the cancer treatment, as in the case of the princess. The doctor said that after the surgery, there is a lot of tissue to do analysis on and nail down the diagnosis. He also said that while the term 'preventive chemotherapy' is not used much, the procedure refers to post-operative chemotherapy.