Chemotherapy, along with radiation and surgery, represents one of three treatment options that can be used for cancer. It is an important method especially for leukemia and lymphoma, but it is also used for other cancers. Chemotherapy is often accompanied by side effects such as hair loss or nausea and vomiting. The extent of the side effects depends on the type and dosage of the cytostatic drugs used. Learn more about the effect, procedure and side effects of chemotherapy here.
What is chemotherapy?
The term chemotherapy is generally used to describe all drug treatments that prevent cells from growing or cause them to die. Today, however, the term is used almost exclusively in connection with cancer. If a malignant tumor is present, it is combated in the course of chemotherapy with the aid of so-called cytostatic drugs. These drugs ensure that the cancer cells can no longer divide and die. Chemotherapy is particularly effective for cancers that are not localized, but where the cancer cells have spread throughout the body. This is the case, for example, with leukemia or lymph node cancer. Under certain conditions, however, the treatment may also be useful for various other forms of cancer, such as breast cancer, lung cancer, or colorectal cancer.
Surgery and radiation therapy
In addition to chemotherapy, two other treatment methods are available, radiation therapy and surgery. They are among the local treatment options because their effect is limited to a specific region of the body. Chemotherapy, on the other hand, is a systemic therapy. Systemic means that the drugs exert their effect throughout the body. This is why chemotherapy is first used for cancers such as leukemia or lymph node cancer that cannot be treated locally. For other types of cancer, it is used primarily when the cancer may have spread or is certain to have spread and metastases have formed. In a few tumor types, chemotherapy can also be used locally. In this case, the drugs are injected in high doses directly into the blood vessel supplying the affected organ. To prevent the cytostatic drugs from spreading from there to the rest of the body, part of the blood vessels is briefly clamped off.
Adjuvant, additive, and neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy is often used together with surgery, radiation, or both, rather than alone. This is the case with adjuvant, additive, and neoadjuvant chemotherapy:
- Adjuvant chemotherapy: adjuvant chemotherapy is given following surgery in which the malignant tumor has been completely removed. Its purpose is to prevent any cancer cells (micrometastases) that may have remained in the body from continuing to multiply and causing the cancer to recur.
- Additive chemotherapy: if surgery could not remove all the tumor tissue, chemotherapy is also used. This is to reduce the tumor and prevent further spread of cancer.
- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy: if a tumor cannot be completely removed, for example, due to its size, neoadjuvant chemotherapy is used. The aim of the treatment is to reduce the tumor so that subsequently a surgical removal is possible.
Curative and palliative chemotherapy
Depending on the stage of the tumor, chemotherapy can have different goals. If a complete cure of the affected person is possible, it is called curative therapy. If, on the other hand, the cancer has already progressed too far, only palliative treatment is possible. Chemotherapy plays an important role here, for example in the case of advanced breast cancer, colon cancer or lung cancer. It is intended to help reduce metastases and slow down the progression of the disease. In addition, the treatment is intended to prolong the patient’s life expectancy and improve his or her quality of life. It should be noted in palliative treatment that the side effects of chemotherapy are less than the symptoms that the cancer would cause if left untreated.
