What is chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy consists of administering drugs that destroy cancer cells, interfering with their growth and division processes.
Chemotherapy may be administered:
- orally (tablets)
- intravenously (through a catheter placed in a vein)
These drugs also prevent cancer from spreading to other parts of the body, but can affect not only cancer cells but also healthy cells (e.g. blood cells and cells lining the mucous membranes of the mouth, intestines, hair follicles, etc.).
What are the main goals of chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy can have different objectives depending on the stage of the cancer:
- Adjuvant chemotherapy: This is given after a curative treatment (e.g. chemotherapy after surgery or radiotherapy). Its purpose is to prevent the possible spread of micrometastases by destroying any remaining tumour cells, eliminating the likelihood of residual disease
- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy: This is given before surgery or radiation therapy. It aims to reduce the size of the tumor, to make surgery possible or to allow further removal of tumor mass; It reduces the "tumour burden", i.e. the number of existing tumour cells
- Palliative chemotherapy: This is given when the tumour is already at an advanced stage, with metastasis in places other than just the original tumour. Its purpose is to treat and relieve the symptomatology of cancer, with no curative intent
What are the side effects of chemotherapy?
By interfering with healthy cells in the body, chemotherapy can lead to the appearance of undesirable symptoms such as:
Depending on the drug used, some people may:
- feeling tingling or numbness in the arms and legs
- experience hair loss (alopecia)
- develop mouth ulcers
- Losing your appetite
- develop an aversion to the smell or taste of food
- having anemia (decrease in red blood cells)
- more frequent infections (due to a decrease in white blood cells, which are the blood cells that protect the body from infections)
Fortunately, today there are drugs that cause fewer adverse effects, and effective drugs are available that help alleviate these effects.
Source: Portuguese Society of Oncology