1.  What is chemotherapy?

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

2. How does chemotherapy work?

     It targets cells that grow and divide quickly, as cancer cells do. Unlike radiation or surgery, which targets 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’s what causes some of the side effects of  the treatment.

3.  What does chemotherapy do?

     It depends on the kind of cancer you have and how far along it is.

• 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, but that doesn’t always happen.
• 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 tumors.
• Ease symptoms: In some cases, chemotherapy can’t cure or control the spread of cancer and is simply used to shrink tumors that cause pain or pressure. These tumors often continue to grow back.

4.   How is chemotherapy used?

      Sometimes, it treats cancer by itself, 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: Living material in the form of bacteria, vaccines, or antibodies is carefully introduced to kill cancer cells.
• Chemotherapy may be used to:
• Shrink a tumor before radiation therapy or surgery -- called neoadjuvant chemotherapy
• Destroy any remaining cancer cells 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

6.   How long does chemotherapy last?

          That depends on:

• The type of cancer you have
• How far along it is
• The goal of treatment: cure, control growth, or ease pain
• The type of chemotherapy
• The way your body responds to the treatment

You may have chemotherapy in “cycles,” which means a period of treatment and then a period of rest. For example, a 3-week cycle may be either day 1 or the initial few days of week 1 of treatment and then 3 weeks of rest. The rest allows your body to make new healthy cells. Once a cycle has been planned.