If you have cancer, chemotherapy could be your primary cancer treatment, or an adjuvant therapy, meaning it’s used in addition to surgery or radiation cancer therapy. Though its side effects can be severe, chemo, as it’s often called, can be a life-saving cancer treatment.

The Power of Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that's been used since the 1950s to combat different types of cancer. Chemotherapy drugs kill cancer cells, which grow and multiply more quickly than healthy cells, and prevent these cells from replicating. This stops the cancer from growing and spreading.

Getting Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is delivered in various ways, depending on the type of cancer and type of chemotherapy drug you are taking. Some treatments can be given at home, or you may go to a doctor's office or medical facility to receive your treatment.

Chemotherapy drugs may be administered:

  • As a pill or liquid that you swallow
  • As an injection into skin or a muscle
  • Topically, in the form of a cream or ointment that's rubbed on your skin
  • Intravenously through a vein in your arm
  • Intravenously through a port placed under the skin in the chest
  • Into the artery that supplies the cancerous area with blood
  • Directly into the intraperitoneal cavity, which is the abdominal cavity that houses organs like your liver, stomach, intestines, and your ovaries

Your chemotherapy schedule will vary depending on the type of cancer you have — your course could be monthly, weekly, over several days, or even daily. How long you'll need to continue therapy depends on your cancer and how well your body copes.

You may receive one drug or a combination of different drugs on the same day as part of your chemotherapy cancer treatment; it depends on the treatment your oncologist believes is the most effective for your particular cancer.

Chemotherapy Side Effects

As chemotherapy attacks the cancer cells, it also can cause damage to your body's healthy cells. Chemotherapy side effects vary greatly from person to person — some people hardly feel sick at all and don't experience any side effects, while others notice that their bodies react strongly.

Some possible side effects of chemotherapy include:

  • Gastrointestinal problems, like diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea
  • Extreme fatigue
  • Hair loss, which can be all over the body, not just on your head
  • Bleeding and bruising easily
  • Loss of fertility
  • Decreased sex drive and other sexual problems
  • Decreased appetite
  • Dry mouth or painful sores in the mouth
  • Increased risk of getting an infection
  • Damage to the nerves in the hands and feet, which lead to pain, numbness, or a tingling sensation
  • Altered senses of smell and taste
  • Difficulty remembering things
  • Symptoms of menopause, like hot flashes and vaginal dryness

Good Candidates for Chemotherapy

In general, chemotherapy is indicated for:

  • Cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes
  • Treatment following surgery to make sure all cancer cells left behind are destroyed
  • Treatment before surgery to shrink large tumors to minimize the invasiveness of the surgery
  • Cancer that has spread throughout the body and can't be removed through surgery alone

Chemotherapy isn't likely to help people with very early stage cancer that hasn't spread beyond the initial cells (called an “in situ” cancer). Those cancers will often be treated by surgical removal alone. There are exceptions to this, particularly for very aggressive tumors such as bone and connective tissue cancers (sarcomas), which may require chemotherapy even if they are small and localized.

Chemotherapy is effective for many cancers, and it's also used to ease symptoms and provide comfort, even though it can have serious side effects. If chemotherapy is the suggested route for your cancer treatment, ask plenty of questions so that you will know what to expect.