Treatment of Cancer

Available treatment options depend on the type of cancer as well as the stage it is in. Chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and immunotherapy are frequently used with the common types of cancer, but are just a few kinds of cancer treatment options.

Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy, or "chemo" as is it often called, is the use of strong drugs to treat cancer. Developed in the 1950s, it has helped many people live out their lives after a cancer diagnosis. Depending on the type of cancer you have and the stage of growth it is in, your doctor will choose from over 100 different chemo drugs to treat you. Chemotherapy can be used to cure your cancer, relieve the symptoms of your cancer, slow your cancer’s growth, prevent your cancer from spreading, and kill the cancer that may have spread to other body parts. In any of these cases, chemo works to kill the cancer cells, sometimes killing normal cells in the process.

Chemo drugs are often used in conjunction with other chemo drugs. This is called combination chemotherapy and the drugs work together to kill the cancerous cells. Chemotherapy drugs can be administered in a few ways including orally, in a pill or liquid, a shot, intravenously, or put right into the spine, chest, or rubbed on the skin. Depending on the type and severity of your cancer, you may receive chemo once a day, week, or month. In between chemo cycles, there is usually a break so that the body has time to regain strength.

Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy, as the name suggests, is the use of radiation to treat cancer. This treatment is used to kill the cancerous cells by sending large doses of radiation to the cancer cells or tumor. Sometimes, this radiation can also kill normal cells. However, these normal cells are able to repair themselves while cancer cells do not have this ability. Like with chemotherapy, radiation therapy can be used to achieve a number of goals like curing your cancer, preventing cancer from spreading, and reducing the symptoms of cancer. These treatments differ, though, in that radiation therapy is only used to treat the area where the cancer is, while chemotherapy treats the whole body.

There are two ways in which radiation therapy can be given. The first, external beam radiation, sends high-energy rays from outside of the body to the tumor. The second, internal radiation therapy, sends radiation from a radioactive source inside of the body. This type of radiation therapy can allow your doctor to give a large amount of radiation to the cancer cells.

Immunotherapy
This type of treatment uses your own immune system to help fight the cancer. Immunotherapy is a type of biotherapy that can be used on its own to treat cancer, but is often used in combination with other treatments. It seems to work best when treating smaller cancers that are in their early stages and is less effective in advanced-stage cancers. Due to this, immunotherapy is most commonly used with other treatments to make them more effective and give cancer patients a less-toxic treatment option.

These treatment options are just some of the few available for cancer patients. In different cases surgery may also be an option as well as targeted therapy, anti-angiogenesis treatment, hyperthermia, bone marrow and peripheral blood stem cell transplant, and gene therapy.