What is Chemotherapy Treatment
Chemotherapy treatment means treating cancer with a chemical much like we treat an infection with Penicillin. Almost everyone has heard horrible stories about the side effects of chemo, and the reality is that it is not a pleasant experience. But, people can survive and have a normal life after cancer – whether they went chemo or not. Chemotherapy treatment works just after surgery. Being a systemic treatment, it attacks young and small clusters of cancer cells anywhere in the body. Chemotherapy treatment uses medicines, hormones, or biological agents to fight cancer. Chemotherapy treatments are given in different ways: it can be given orally, by injection into a muscle, by injection into a vein, or by injection into a catheter (a device which is attached to a major blood vessel).
Chemotherapy treatment are often given in cycles; a treatment for a period of time, followed by a recovery period, then another treatment. Chemotherapy may be given in a variety of settings including your home, a hospital outpatient facility, a physician’s office or clinic. Chemo conjures up thoughts of treatments that cause horrible side affects like the so called Chemotherapy Nausea. It often leaves the patient feeling worse than if they had no treatments at all. However, because advances in chemotherapy drugs and medications, the side effects have decreased by some degree. Some of the unpleasant side effects of chemo have been reduced.
Cancer chemotherapy may consist of a single drug or combination of drugs, and can be administered through a vein, injected into a body cavity, or delivered orally in the form of a pill. Chemotherapy is different from surgery or radiation therapy in that the cancer-fighting drugs circulate in the blood to parts of the body where the cancer may have spread and can kill or eliminate cancers cells at sites that are a great distances from the original cancer. Cancerous cells are rogue cells. they morph from normal cells and then multiply in a random, out-of-control fashion. Chemotherapy is meant to destroy those cells that have been left behind by surgery.