Specialist-Driven Procedures and Therapies
Depending on your type of cancer, these specific procedures can be used alone or in combination with other treatments to produce beneficial outcomes. These include;
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy refers to the use of chemicals (medicines) to rid cancer cells of their bodies. These drugs work by interfering with rapidly growing cells, and reducing their reproduction and multiplication.
The goal of chemotherapy may be:
- To cure cancer: Chemotherapy may be used in blood-related cancers such as leukemia and lymphomas to cure the cancer.
- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy: Chemotherapy with neoadjuvant technique may be offered before surgery. If a tumor can not be operated on because of its size or location, chemotherapy can reduce the tumor size enough to allow surgery.
- Adjuvant chemotherapy: It is a type of chemotherapy administered following surgery in order to “clean up” any cancerous cells or tissues that have spread beyond the tumor but are not yet visible on available imaging tests. Such transient cells are termed micrometastases. Adjuvant chemotherapy is intended to reduce the risk of cancer recurrence.
- To prolong life: Chemotherapy may be used to extend life.
- Palliative chemotherapy: It refers to the use of chemotherapy to reduce cancer symptoms – but not to cure or prolong life.
Chemotherapy drugs are designed to treat fast-growing cells. Sometimes the most treatable and possibly curable forms of cancer are the ones that have historically been the most aggressive and rapidly fatal. Chemotherapy, on the other hand, is less successful for tumors that grow slowly or are “indolent.”
There are several different types of chemotherapy drugs that vary in their action, mechanisms as well as in the portion of the cell cycle that they interrupt. Chemotherapy may be administered by vein (intravenous chemotherapy), orally (via a pill or capsule), directly into the fluid that surrounds the brain, or into the fluid that is present in the body cavities.
Chemotherapy drugs are most often used in combination – something called chemotherapy in combination. Different cancer cells are reproducing and dividing at various points in the process. Using more than one drug helps treat cancer cells at whatever point in the cell cycle they are at.