Chemotherapy

The word chemotherapy was once used to mean any medicine for treating any disease. Even taking an aspirin would be chemotherapy. These days, chemotherapy is most often used to mean taking medicines, or drugs, to treat cancer. You might take these drugs before or after surgery, with radiation (x-ray) treatment, or you might take the drugs by themselves.

Cancer chemotherapy is not new. It has been helping people since the early 1950s. The chemotherapy drugs your doctor suggests have been tested again and again. Careful research shows they work. Partly because of chemotherapy, many people with cancer live full and happy lives.

How does Chemotherapy work?

If your doctor wants you to have chemotherapy, it means something can be done to try to control, or even cure, your cancer.

Cancer is a group of cells that divide quickly and are growing out of control. The word cancer is just a broad name for many different diseases. They all affect your body in different ways. But these diseases have one thing in common, they involve cells growing out of control. Everyone's cancer is different, and so is the chemotherapy that is given.

You and your doctor will decide on what chemotherapy is best for your cancer. Together, you will plan a schedule that works for you.

How is Chemotherapy given?

Most chemotherapy drugs are given in one of the following ways:

You might simply swallow a pill. If your chemotherapy is a pill, just swallow it as your doctor prescribes.

Sometimes chemotherapy is given like a flu shot. The shots may be given in your doctor's office, a hospital, a clinic, or at home.

Sometimes drugs are given right into your veins through a needle. This is called an IV (intravenous) injection.

You may take chemotherapy once a day, once a week, or even once a month, depending on the type of cancer you have and the chemotherapy you are taking. How long you take chemotherapy also depends on the type of cancer and what length of time research has shown produces the best treatment results.

Source: American Cancer Society