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Cancer Information Tips :: How Does Chemotherapy Work
How Does Chemotherapy Work: How and Why Does Chemotherapy Work Against Cancer?
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How does chemotherapy work? Chemotherapy attacks reproducing cells in the human body through a regimen of drugs that are combined to best fight whatever cancer a patient suffers from.
Cell Division
Normal cells go through a cycle that ends in the cell dividing into two new cells. Cells spend most of their lives in a resting stage, but eventually grow larger so they can eventually split into two new, normal sized cells.
Cell division happens to replace cells that are lost when someone is injured and just from the normal processes of the human body. Cell division and reproduction is constant in the human body.
Knowing about cell division is important if you are going to understand how chemotherapy does work to fight cancer.
Abnormal Cells
Cancer is the presence of abnormal and/or mutated cells that are dividing and growing at unusually fast rates. These cancerous cells invade the tissues of the body and can also metastasize and form cancerous tumors in other parts of the body.
It is the combination of the invasive nature of the abnormal cells and the fact that the cancer spreads that differentiates malignant cancerous tumors from benign tumors. Benign tumors do not spread to other areas, and are limited to their original location.
Attacking Cells
Chemotherapy works by attacking reproducing cells. When it comes to distinguishing between cancerous cells and healthy cells, chemotherapy does not know how.
Does chemotherapy work on the cancerous cells? Yes. However it also affects the normal tissues and can cause side effects.
Treating Tumors
Chemotherapy is most effective in the early stages of cancer, when tumors are less differentiated and cell division is still happening at a fast rate. In larger, more solid tumors, there is not as much cell division near the center of the tumors.
This makes them less sensitive to chemotherapy as the drugs have a harder time reaching the center of the tumor.
In the case of larger tumors, chemotherapy is often used alongside radiation therapy before surgery. Radiation therapy, like chemotherapy, is used to shrink tumors to make surgery easier and to alleviate cancer symptoms.
Unlike chemotherapy, radiation is a local treatment and does not affect the body in a systemic way.
Why and how does chemotherapy work for patients who have advanced stage cancer or recurrent Cancer?
Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are also used after surgery to kill off any remaining cancer cells. They are also used in palliative care to continue to shrink tumors, destroy cancer cells and to lengthen life expectancy.
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CancerInfoTips.com :: How Does Chemotherapy Work