CHEMOTHERAPY FOR CANCER
- Chemotherapy is among the most effective treatments for cancer.
- It involves the use of a combination of drugs that collectively attack cancer cells.
- It is used widely across the world, and has its own set of benefits and side-effects.
BENEFITS
- Certain types of cancers like acute leukemia, malignant lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and choriocarcinoma are completely curable when treated with the right type of chemotherapy.
- Chemotherapy also helps remove the residual cancer cells from the primary site, after the tumour is removed.
- This particular cancer treatment not only helps patients live longer, but also consistently increases the chances for survival throughout the various stages of treatment.
- Often, when surgery is expected to be mutilating or not initially possible due to a tricky position of the tumour, chemotherapy is used to first shrink the size of the tumour, so that surgery is eventually possible.
- In case of advanced head, neck and cervical cancers, chemotherapy is given along with radiation for a synergistic effect.
- Today, however, the treatment is more targeted and the result more effective with almost no side-effects – this is known as targeted therapy.
- This type of therapy includes the use of monoclonal antibiotics and anti-anglogenic drugs along with oral pills and injections.
SIDE-EFFECTS
- Chemotherapy inherently attacks all cells that divide rapidly.
- As the drugs cannot differentiate between cancer and normal cells, side-effects occur once the normal cells start getting destroyed as well.
- The most commonly hit ‘normal’ cells are those of the blood, cells in the mouth, stomach, bowels and hair follicles.
- These may lead to low blood counts, mouth sores, nausea, diarrhea and/or hair loss.
- The side-effects depend on the types of drug combination used during chemotherapy.
- These effects usually do not cause any long-term harm and gradually disappear once the treatment is completed.
- Eventually, the normal cells grow back and the side-effects subside.
- However, some more persistent side-effects like intense vomiting, diarrhea, neutropenia with fever and low platelet counts with/without bleeding must be immediately treated.
- In some cases, there are no side-effects post-chemotherapy, and that does not mean that the treatment is not effective.
- Every human body has its own way of responding to chemotherapy.