Aging Begins at 30

Treating Cancer With Chemicals

Cancer can be treated by surgical removal, by radiation, endocrine manipulation, immunotherapy, cytokine infusion (intercellular messenger changers such as alpha interferon) or chemotherapy. The latter term comes from two words, "chemical" and "treatment" and was first used in 1910 by Paul Ehlich, a German scientist who developed a "magic bullet" to treat syphilis. It was later used and still is to describe treatment of infection with antibiotics. Since 1945, and more since 1950, it has been used for the cell killing (cytotoxic) chemicals used to treat cancer. People using these drugs were called chemotherapists and are now called medical oncologists or cancer specialists.

Anticancer drugs act on rapidly dividing cells such as cancer cells to destroy their ability to grow and multiply but also living cells of the gastrointestinal tract, bone marrow and hair follicle cells which tells you some of the unwanted side effects that can develop. At present, over 100,000 patients are cured in the U.S. yearly by cancer chemotherapy alone or combined with radiation or surgery or both. Without treatment, cancer cells grow in an uncontrolled manner and may break away from the original site and spread to other parts of the body.

Cancer chemotherapy can be by one drug or more often a group of drugs that work together (combination chemotherapy) or with surgery or radiation or both (combined modality treatment). Chemotherapy can also be used after another treatment to destroy any residual cells and it is called adjuvant chemotherapy.

Long-term freedom from a cancer is called a remission and drugs causing remissions are often combined or modified to reach a cure. Cures can be obtained with chemotherapy alone in Hodgkin's disease, acute lymphocytic and myelocytic leukemias, testicular cancer and some forms of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Adjuvant chemotherapy has improved survival rates in many other cancers. First treatment provides the best chance for significant benefit and should be given in maximally effective doses.

Nausea, vomiting, hair loss and bone marrow depression with impaired resistance to infection occur frequently but are usually reversible. New antinausea drugs have greatly reduced nausea and vomiting and new marrow stimulants such as granulocyte colony stimulating factors or erythropoietin have lessened the danger of side effects on the bone marrow.

Both patients and their physicians are willing to accept a high risk of toxicity if there is a definite chance of cure. The new agents mentioned and different ways of giving the cancer killing medicines have contributed to a superior quality of life, higher tolerable doses, and a trend to prolonged survival or cure.

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See related Patient Topics Cancer Chemotherapy, Cancers or Procedures and Therapies.

See related Provider Topics Cancers or Procedures and Therapies.

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