How is chemotherapy used to treat cancer?

Normal cells grow and die in a very controlled way, but cancer cells lack control. Cancer cells keep reproducing and changing without any way to stop. Cancer cells spread to other parts of the body. Chemotherapy interferes with the reproduction of the cancer cells at several points in their life cycle, causing the cells to stop growing and/or multiplying.

Depending on the type of cancer you have and the stage of your cancer development, chemotherapy can be used to cure cancer, to keep the cancer from spreading, to slow the cancer's growth, or to relieve the symptoms that may be caused by the cancer.

Chemotherapy drugs are designed to kill cancer cells, to keep them from growing, or to keep them from multiplying. Only your doctor can tell you whether chemotherapy is appropriate to use in your situation. Chemotherapy may be used alone or in combination with surgery and/or radiation to fight cancer. The drugs may be administered orally (by mouth), topically (on the skin), intravenously (through a vein), or intraperitoneally (directly into the abdomen). The drugs typically enter the bloodstream and circulate to all parts of the body. Because healthy cells in the body are also affected—including those in the digestive tract, bone marrow, and hair follicles—side effects including nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and loss of hair may occur. Still, many patients continue to work, exercise, and live their lives normally while receiving chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy administration has improved significantly over the past few decades, and overall patients are now tolerating treatments better than ever before. We cannot emphasize this point enough. All too often patients will express concerns about receiving chemotherapy because they had witnessed a family member or friend experience terrible side effects from chemotherapy in the past. If this is something that you can relate to, it is important to remember that human beings are complex, and everyone is different. One person’s experience with chemotherapy is not necessarily what yours will be. In addition, improvements in modern medicine (including improvements in chemotherapy medications as well as the medications available to counteract many of the side effects of chemotherapy) have led to better patient satisfaction in general.

If you still have reservations, one option is to simply try the treatment one time and see how it goes. If you don’t like it, you are not obligated to finish the treatment course (which typically can last for several months). We have found that patients who are initially hesitant to start chemotherapy find this approach to be very reasonable, and that most patients who begin chemotherapy continue on to complete the prescribed treatment plan. It is only natural to be fearful of chemotherapy and its widely discussed side effects.