FAQs

What is chemotherapy?

Chemotherapy is also called “chemo,” it’s a way to treat cancer that uses drugs to kill cancer cells.

How does chemotherapy work?

In our body each day new cells are formed to maintain the normal function of the body. It targets cells that grow and divide quickly, as cancer cells do. Unlike radiation or surgery, which target specific areas, chemo can work throughout your body. But it can also affect some fast-growing healthy cells, like those of the skin, hair, intestines, and bone marrow. That is what causes some of the side effects from the treatment.

What does chemotherapy do?

It depends on the kind of cancer and stage you have.

• Cure: In some cases, the treatment can destroy cancer cells to the point that your doctor can no longer detect them in your body. After that, the best outcome is that they never grow back again. In scientific language, a patient without disease for 5 years is considered as cured.
• Control: In some cases, it may only be able to keep cancer from spreading to other parts of your body or slow the growth of cancer .
• Palliation or Ease symptoms: In some cases, chemotherapy can’t cure or control the spread of cancer and is simply used to shrink tumours that cause pain or pressure. These tumours often continue to grow back.

How is chemotherapy used?

Sometimes chemotherapy is used alone, but more often it’s used in combination with:

• Surgery: A doctor removes cancerous tumors or tissue, or organs contaminated with cancerous cells.
• Radiation therapy: A doctor uses invisible radioactive particles to kill cancer cells. It may be delivered by a special machine that bombards parts of your body from the outside, or by putting radioactive material on, near, and even inside your body.
• Biological therapy:in the form of  antibodies are carefully introduced to kill cancer cells.

How chemotherapy works against cancer?

• CT may reduce the size and extent of lesion before radiation therapy or surgery – this strategy is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
• CT may kill remaining cancer cells, which may not be visible after surgery or radiation therapy — called adjuvant chemotherapy.
• Make other therapies (biological or radiation) more effective.
• Destroy cancer cells that return or spread to other parts of your body.

Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy is a type of cancer treatment that targets the  specific molecules in cancer cells. These therapies have less side effects , and available in oral form for many cancers.

Hormone Therapy

Hormone therapy is a treatment that slows or stops the growth of breast and prostate cancers that use hormones to grow. All cancers do not respond to hormone treatment.ER and PR positive breast cancers may benefit from hormonal manipulation.

What Are Cancer Clinical Trials?

Read more: https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/treatment/clinical-trials/what-are-trials  /   www.ctri.nic.in