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Cancer Information Tips :: Types of Chemotherapy
Types of Chemotherapy: The Different Types of Chemotherapy Treatment
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Types of chemotherapy a doctor recommends for a patient depend on a number of variables.
Depending on the type of cancer, how advanced the cancer has become and the general health of the patient, chemotherapy treatments will differ.
What Does Chemotherapy Do?
Chemotherapy is a cancer treatment that aims to slow and stop the growth of mutated and abnormal cells that are attacking the body by dividing and growing at an unhealthy pace.
Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment using drugs that can attack those cells throughout your body.
The goal of chemotherapy can be to control the cancer or help shrink tumors before surgery, destroy remaining cancer cells post-surgery, assist other therapies or destroy new or recurrent cancer cells all together.
There are different types of chemotherapy that can be administered in a number of ways.
Chemotherapy via Injection
Using a needle, the chemotherapy is injected into a muscle in either your arm, thigh or hip. It can also be injected under the skin of your arm, leg or belly. In this case, the injection can be done either at home, at a clinic or at the hospital.
Intratumoural chemotherapy is when chemotherapy is directly injected into a tumor. This is also called intralesional chemotherapy. It is a very experimental treatment at this point and is not used often.
Intravenous Chemotherapy
When administered intravenously, the chemotherapy drugs go directly into a vein and into your blood flow. This method uses either a needle or a catheter. This is one of the most common types of chemotherapy.
Oral Chemotherapy
Either in capsule or liquid form, chemotherapy drugs can also be ingested. In this case you can often take your chemotherapy treatments at home, but with careful instructions given by your doctor.
Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy
The peritoneal cavity in your abdomen is the cavity that holds your intestines, stomach, liver and, in the case of women, your ovaries. Intraperitoneal chemotherapy administers the drugs directly into this cavity.
This means more chemotherapy goes directly to the tumor and less goes to other parts of the body.
Similarly, intravesical chemotherapy is an injection into the bladder and intrapleural chemotherapy is an injection into the chest cavity. The latter is sometimes used to treat lung or breast cancer.
Intra-Arterial Chemotherapy
In this case, the chemotherapy drugs are fed directly into the artery that is closest to the cancer.
This is another treatment that focuses the dosage on the tumor and results in a lower dosage of the chemotherapy going to the rest of the body. Liver cancer is most commonly treated with this type of chemotherapy.
Chemotherapy is not the only option for treating cancer. Radiation therapy, hormone therapy and surgery are also options. Types of chemotherapy are often used in harmony with one or more of those treatments.
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CancerInfoTips.com :: Types of Chemotherapy