Cancer Chemotherapy

Written by Barbara Tiger

Treatment for Cancer and Chemotherapy Cancer chemotherapy is a method of curing the disease of cancer.  There are several different ways that doctors treat cancer, but chemotherapy is one of the most common of those methods.  That is because in the wide range of different types of chemotherapy that is found in the body, it becomes necessary for doctors to find some type of method of stopping the cells from growing, dividing and therefore spreading.  Chemotherapy treatments work to accomplish this goal very well. Understanding what chemotherapy is happens to be very important for any patient that may be going through this process.  What is chemotherapy?  The words themselves actually mean "drug treatment" which sounds very vague.  In truth, it is a method of treating cancer in which the medications and procedure will kill cells with a cytotoxic drug.  These drugs may be a combination of other drugs, or they may just be one drug.  There are many drugs that are used in this manner (currently 70 of them) that can be very helpful in fighting off cancer growth.    Doctors will determine the best drug choice for you, based on a number of factors. Those factors include the type of cancer that you have as well as the location of the cancer in your body (usually the location where the cancer was first found.)  Additionally, doctors must take into consideration the cancer cells themselves and often need to study them to be sure of their overall effect.  Added to this is the fact that doctors must consider if the cancer has spread or is likely to spread.  All of these factors together must be considered for doctors to make the decision on which chemotherapy drugs can be used in your body for your specific needs. From this point, cancer chemotherapy enters the realm of how the chemotherapy is used.  There are several options here, too, that doctors will select from.  It can be done in addition to other treatments including radiotherapy, through surgery, biological therapy as well as hormone therapy.  To treat cancer, your doctor may need to employ several of these methods to get the end results that you should have.  Sometimes, patients will need an additional dosage of the drug used in chemotherapy.  This is called a high dose of chemotherapy.  In this situation, a drip infusion is given to you of stem cells afterwards to provide your body with necessary resources it may lose in the chemotherapy process. Chemotherapy treatment is used in various types of cancer.  It is often directed at the specific location where the cancer has been found.  For example, it may be used for as breast cancer chemotherapy and in these situations, the chemotherapy drugs and methods are concentrated on the breast region because this is wehre the cancer has been found.  There is no doubt that chemotherapy treatments must be tailored to the individual themselves, which often sets you up for questions and a trial and error period where doctors are unsure about what methods for treating cancer will work for you. Cancer chemotherapy is a very harsh sentence.  Although the cancer can be wiped out by this type of treatment when effective, there are many harsh side effects and prolonged effects that you will need to work through and sometimes live with.  The least of these is chemotherapy nausea which really can be one of the worst experiences that you have.  As you work with your doctor to determine the best course of action for treating your disease, take some time to learn about the medications included in chemotherapy.  You may be surprised by the fact that you can overcome this cancer through the use of such medications.

 

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