How Do Chemotherapy Fight Cancer?

Medical Video: Cancer Treatment: Chemotherapy

In the span of two decades, the incidence of cancer has increased by 70%. According to the World Health Organization, there are 14 million new cancer cases and 8.2 million people die from cancer in 2012. Cancer treatment usually consists of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Each medical procedure has its own role in dealing with cancer in the body. Here is an explanation of how chemotherapy continues to be done to treat cancer in various parts of the world.

What is chemotherapy?

Chemotherapy is one of the cancer treatments given in the form of chemical drugs that use quite a lot of doses, and the types of drugs that are hard to destroy cancer cells. This treatment is carried out on certain goals according to the severity of the cancer and the type of cancer suffered by a patient. Following is the division of chemo based on its objectives, namely:

Curative chemotherapy, intended to eradicate all cancer cells in the body and actually aim to cure a patient.
Adjuvant chemotherapy, usually done after the patient has undergone surgery or various other cancer therapy processes. Adjuvant chemotherapy is then given to remove the remaining cancer cells that may still be left in the body, which then aims to cure the patient.
Neoadjuvant chemotherapy, which is actually given to patients before surgery. This is intended to reduce cancer cells or reduce the size of existing tumors, making it easy to remove the tumor during surgery.
Palliative chemotherapy, called palliative if chemotherapy is not possible to cure and eliminate cancer from the body that occurs in patients with advanced cancer. However, this therapy still needs to be done to relieve symptoms and slow the progression of cancer.

Chemotherapy cycle

Basically, chemotherapy is given in two ways, namely through infusion and through the venous blood flow. The flow of venous blood vessels that flow in every part of the body is used by doctors to drain chemo drugs in it, so that it will reach all parts of the body and destroy cancer cells that may have spread to other parts.

Every chemotherapy has its own cycle, each cycle consists of several days and several types of drugs are given. Then after one cycle is completed, the patient will be given a time lag to recover to then do the next cycle. Each cancer patient has a different lag time and number of cycles, depending on the type of cancer, the condition of the body and the stage of the cancer that it is experiencing. Therefore, each cancer patient will be given their own procedure sheet and protocol when doing chemotherapy.

How does chemotherapy kill cancer cells?

In normal circumstances, new body cells will divide when the cell is damaged. Cleavage that occurs in normal cells is also not as fast as cancer cells, when dividing into two, the cell will divide again and become four, and so on. Whereas in cancer cells, cleavage that occurs very quickly and a lot, from once cell division can produce cells twice as much as normal cells.

Chemotherapy drugs that enter the body will immediately react with cancer cells that are doing growth and division. Some cancer drugs will kill cancer cells by damaging the cell division control system, so that the cell can no longer divide itself. While other drugs will damage cells by damaging the cell nucleus, damage when the cell is doing the process of multiplying genes, and damage when the cancer cell is 'resting'. Various drug combinations given when chemotherapy make cancer cells damaged in various ways and have the opportunity to stop cancer growth.

The workings of chemotherapy drugs that damage cancer cells that are dividing also make the normal cells in the body that are doing the cleavage also damaged. The skin tissue, bone marrow, and digestive system whose cells always divide will also be damaged by the drug.