Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy which simply means the use of drugs
or medications to treat disease came into general use in
the 1970s after clinical trials proved them to be effective
in treating cancer. To many people, chemotherapy is frightening
because of the fears of side effects that are sometimes
caused by the use of the potent drugs needed to disrupt
the cancer cells' ability to grow and multiply. The use of
chemotherapy drugs has been greatly refined over the years,
so that many of the earlier side effects have been modified.
Chemotherapy may be given in several ways. Sometimes
drugs are given in pill or capsule form and taken by mouth.
Other times they may be injected into a muscle or given
through a vein. How fast the cancer cells are destroyed may
vary with the medication and the type of cancer. Because
each drug acts on the cell in its own way, and at different
times in the cell cycle, using them in combination can be
more effective than using any one of them individually.
Some are given on a weekly basis, others, monthly or daily,
sometimes for periods of one or two years following the
initial treatment. Because most anticancer drugs have the
potential for dangerous side effects, they must be administered
carefully by medical professionals experienced in
their use. Chemotherapy has proven to be very effective in
cancer treatment. It is estimated that more than 50,000 cancer
patients are being cured each year with the use of anticancer drugs, either alone or combined with radiation therapy and/or surgery.
What is chemotherapy?
Chemo means "chemical," and therapy means "treatment";
thus chemotherapy is simply the treatment of cancer using
chemicals (drugs).
What does chemotherapy do?
In simple terms, the chemicals destroy the cancer cells,
either by interfering with their growth or by preventing
them from reproducing. The various drugs work in different
ways to interrupt the cell life cycle. Some affect the cell
during one or more of its phases of growth and have no
adverse effect on the cell during the other phases; others
affect the cell throughout the whole cycle. The idea behind the use of chemotherapy is to slow down the multiplying
of cancer cells or to destroy the cancer cells themselves.
Has chemotherapy as a treatment been used for a long time?
Although the use of chemicals to fight disease has been
known for a long time, chemotherapy has been used against
cancer only in recent years. Until the 1940s, attempts to
find drugs that would selectively destroy cancer cells were
not successful. The observation at Yale University that the
potent World War I gas nitrogen mustard produced selective
damage to the lymphatic system and bone marrow led to
interest in the use of chemotherapy for cancer. The first
successful use of chemotherapy was at Yale in the mid 1940s. During the 1960s and 1970s the uses and successes
of chemotherapy expanded rapidly.
How Chemotherapy Works
When is chemotherapy used?
Chemotherapy is used for many different reasons:
• It can cure some kinds of cancer.
• It can be used to achieve long term remissions in some
kinds of cancer.
• It can be used to reduce a large tumor, making it small
enough to remove by surgery.
• It can be used after surgery to kill the cells which may
have been left or are in another part of the body.
• It can be used to shrink tumors which cannot be surgically
removed.
• It can be used to make radiation treatment more effective.
• It can prevent or relieve pain or control unpleasant
symptoms.
Is chemotherapy usually used alone as a treatment?
Like other treatments for cancer, chemotherapy is sometimes
used alone. Most of the time chemotherapy is used
in combination with another kind of treatment radiation
therapy or surgery.
What does chemotherapy do that is different from the other
kinds of treatments?
The chemotherapeutic drugs enter the bloodstream either
directly by intravenous injection or indirectly by absorption through the stomach tissues. Therefore, the drugs are transported
wherever tumor cells may be growing. This is different
from surgery and radiotherapy, which concentrate on
a specific part or region of the body for treatment. Chemotherapy
is used when there is the possibility that cancer
cells may be deposited in a different place from the primary
tumor or may be circulating throughout the body via the
bloodstream.
Can chemotherapy ever cure cancer?
According to the National Cancer Institute, the drugs can
produce cures in about 15 percent of clinical cancer. In
many of the remaining cases, they often temporarily stop
the growth, or relieve pain and allow the patient to live a
longer, more comfortable life. In some cancers, in some
patients, chemotherapy can cause the tumors to disappear.
In other cases, chemotherapy makes the tumor shrink. When
this doesn't happen, the drugs may at least stop the tumor
from growing or make it grow more slowly. There are a few
cases, however, in which chemotherapy has no effect on
the growth of the tumor.
Cancer Treatment: Chemotherapy
Isn't chemotherapy used only as a last resort for advanced
cancer cases?
During the early years, when chemotherapy was an investigative
treatment, it was used primarily on patients after
other treatments were no longer working. Today, many doctors
are using chemotherapy to prevent the spread of cancer
for persons with minimal disease. When the drug is used
early, the main idea is to remove the micrometastases which
are not yet seen under the microscope, but are believed to
be present, especially in some stages of breast cancer.
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