Cancer is a disease that is developing in society with increasing frequency, one of the main causes is the lifestyle of people, many times surgery is one of the most used techniques to cure this disease, but there are several types of surgeries that are enhanced in patients with cancer.

Here we discuss opportunities that palliative surgery is one of the most commonly used as a method of cancer prevention, but there are others such as prophylactic surgery, diagnostic surgery, surgery of stratification, curative surgery among the most prominent.

Palliative surgery is applied in some situations where the patient has advanced disease, the purpose of this surgery is to alleviate the cancer but not cure the disease in its entirety.

Some of the effects that can result from cancer, are pain, obstruction of the patient’s motor function, disability, surgery in this case seeks to alleviate these symptoms, to give a better quality of life for the patient, is also used as a support tool when performing chemotherapy and radiotherapy.