![]() Adjuvant chemotherapy is given after a local treatment (radiotherapy or surgery).: 55–59 It is also given for cancers with a high risk of micrometastatic disease. Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is given prior to a local treatment such as surgery, and is designed to shrink the primary tumor.Also, the drugs can often be used at lower doses, reducing toxicity. The biggest advantage is minimising the chances of resistance developing to any one agent. The drugs differ in their mechanism and side-effects. Combination chemotherapy involves treating a person with a number of different drugs simultaneously.Intensification chemotherapy is identical to consolidation chemotherapy but a different drug than the induction chemotherapy is used.The drug that is administered is the same as the drug that achieved remission. Consolidation chemotherapy is given after remission in order to prolong the overall disease-free time and improve overall survival.Combined modality chemotherapy is the use of drugs with other cancer treatments, such as surgery, radiation therapy, or hyperthermia therapy.This type of chemotherapy is used for curative intent. Induction chemotherapy is the first line treatment of cancer with a chemotherapeutic drug.Chemotherapy may be given with a curative intent or it may aim to prolong life or to palliate symptoms. There are a number of strategies in the administration of chemotherapeutic drugs used today. Methotrexate, vincristine, doxorubicin, cisplatinĬyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, vinorelbineĥ-fluorouracil, folinic acid, oxaliplatinĭoxorubicin, cisplatin, methotrexate, ifosfamide, etoposide Mustine, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisoloneĬyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine, prednisolone Treatment strategies Common combination chemotherapy regimens Cancer typeĬyclophosphamide, methotrexate, 5-fluorouracil, vinorelbineĭoxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, dacarbazine These include rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, vasculitis and many others. Because of the effect on immune cells (especially lymphocytes), chemotherapy drugs often find use in a host of diseases that result from harmful overactivity of the immune system against self (so-called autoimmunity). This results in the most common side-effects of chemotherapy: myelosuppression (decreased production of blood cells, hence also immunosuppression), mucositis (inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract), and alopecia (hair loss). Many of the side effects of chemotherapy can be traced to damage to normal cells that divide rapidly and are thus sensitive to anti-mitotic drugs: cells in the bone marrow, digestive tract and hair follicles. To a large extent, chemotherapy can be thought of as a way to damage or stress cells, which may then lead to cell death if apoptosis is initiated. Traditional chemotherapeutic agents are cytotoxic by means of interfering with cell division (mitosis) but cancer cells vary widely in their susceptibility to these agents. Systemic therapy is often used in conjunction with other modalities that constitute local therapy (i.e., treatments whose efficacy is confined to the anatomic area where they are applied) for cancer such as radiation therapy, surgery or hyperthermia therapy. ![]() Importantly, the use of drugs (whether chemotherapy, hormonal therapy or targeted therapy) constitutes systemic therapy for cancer in that they are introduced into the blood stream and are therefore in principle able to address cancer at any anatomic location in the body. By contrast, other inhibitions of growth-signals like those associated with receptor tyrosine kinases are referred to as targeted therapy. The development of therapies with specific molecular or genetic targets, which inhibit growth-promoting signals from classic endocrine hormones (primarily estrogens for breast cancer and androgens for prostate cancer) are now called hormonal therapies. The connotation of the word chemotherapy excludes more selective agents that block extracellular signals ( signal transduction). The term chemotherapy has come to connote non-specific usage of intracellular poisons to inhibit mitosis (cell division) or induce DNA damage, which is why inhibition of DNA repair can augment chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is one of the major categories of the medical discipline specifically devoted to pharmacotherapy for cancer, which is called medical oncology. Chemotherapy may be given with a curative intent (which almost always involves combinations of drugs) or it may aim to prolong life or to reduce symptoms ( palliative chemotherapy). Chemotherapy (often abbreviated to chemo and sometimes CTX or CTx) is a type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs ( chemotherapeutic agents or alkylating agents) as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen.
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