CHEMOTHERAPY (DRUG THERAPY FOR CANCER)

CHEMOTHERAPY (DRUG THERAPY FOR CANCER)



WHAT IS CHEMOTHERAPY?


Chemotherapy is the use of medicines to control, slow, or cure medical conditions. The term chemotherapy is most often used to refer to the medicines given to slow or stop the growth of cancer cells. A problem with these medicines is that some of them also damage healthy cells.


The goals of chemotherapy are:



• To cure the cancer with the fewest or least harmful side effects.


• To control the cancer. This is done by keeping the cancer from spreading; slowing the cancer’s growth; and killing cancer cells that may have spread to other parts of the body from the original tumor.


• To relieve symptoms that the cancer may cause. Relieving symptoms such as pain can help people who have cancer live more comfortably.



WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF DRUG THERAPY FOR CANCER?


Chemotherapy uses many drugs. In general they fall into 3 categories:



• antimitotic drugs


• hormones and hormone inhibitors


• biological therapy.


Most of the chemotherapy drugs are antimitotics. This means that they stop cancer cell growth by stopping cells from dividing into more cells. There are many ways that scientists have found to do this, so there are now many different kinds of these drugs. They include names you may have heard: Adriamycin (doxorubicin), Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide), and 5FU (5-fluorouracil).


Hormone therapy plays a very important role in chemotherapy. Sex hormone inhibitors are used to treat tumors that grow better with the hormones estrogen and testosterone. (These are hormones that naturally occur in the body.) The inhibitors stop the hormones from helping the tumor grow. Two commonly used hormone inhibitors are tamoxifen, which blocks female hormones in breast cancer, and finasteride, which blocks testosterone in men with prostate cancer. Hormones, such as cortisone (prednisone), are also used to treat some tumors.


Biologic therapy, or immunotherapy, is a new name for a growing group of cancer drugs. They are medicines that help the immune system work better and fight the cancer. Interferon is an example of one of these drugs. Another example of biologic therapy is the use of antibodies. The goal is to identify or create antibodies that can bind to cancer cells. The antibodies can keep the cancer cells from multiplying, or they may destroy them. This type of therapy is also called biotherapy or biological response modifier therapy (BRM).



HOW IS CHEMOTHERAPY USED?


Chemotherapy is used in several ways:



• one drug alone


• a combination of drugs


• combined with surgery


• combined with radiation


• combined with both surgery and radiation.

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  3. Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation
  4. Principles of Symptom Management

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Mar 1, 2017 | Posted by in NURSING | Comments Off on CHEMOTHERAPY (DRUG THERAPY FOR CANCER)

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