Chemotherapy

In chemotherapy, drugs are used to treat the cancer. These drugs when administered, stops or slow down growth of cancerous cell. There are different ways by which chemotherapy is administered. Your doctor and medical team take the decision about method of administration. This decision depends on type and stage of cancer and drugs.

There are different means by which chemotherapy drugs are administered. Any one of the method is applied for chemotherapy.

Oral:

There are chemotherapy drugs which are in the form of pills, tablets or liquids. These drugs are taken orally. Because of convenience and ease, this method of administration of chemotherapy drugs is preferred mostly.

Topical:

Tropical method of administration is mostly used to treat skin cancers. Chemotherapy drugs that are used in tropical method come in the form of lotions or gels. These chemotherapy drugs are directly applied on the skin surface.

Injection:

A syringe or needle is used to administer the chemotherapy drug. In this method of drug administration, syringe is injected into the muscle, under the skin or directly into the cancerous area.

Intravenous:

In intravenous method, chemotherapy drugs are administered by injecting a needle into a vein. Drug travel rapidly throughout body via the bloodstream as it is administered intravenously.

Intra-arterial:

Chemotherapy drugs are put arteries which provide blood and oxygen to cancerous tumor. Intra-arterial chemotherapy is applied to those cancer patient in which tumor is confined to specific organ. It is used for certain brain and neck cancers.

Intra-lesional:

In intra-lesional chemotherapy, anticancer drugs are directly injected into tumor that is in the skin, under the skin, or in an organ inside the body. Intra-lesional chemotherapy is used for treating melanoma, Kaposi’s sarcoma and also malignancies such as laryngeal cancers.

Intra-peritoneal:

In intra-peritoneal chemotherapy, drugs are administered directly into the abdominal cavity through a catheter or port. Catheter at is put into place by surgery. Patients with small tumor are better candidates for intra-peritoneal chemotherapy. Ovarian cancer can be treated with intra-peritoneal chemotherapy. Cisplatin, paclitaxel, floxuridine, 5-FU, mitoxantrone, carboplatin, and alfa-interferon are some of the drugs that are used in intra-peritoneal chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy is applied in cycles. Each cycle contain drug period and recovery period. Recovery period helps patient to recover from side effects of treatment. Chemotherapy drugs are administered on different schedules. Whatever the specific schedule, most chemotherapy drugs are given in cycles. The medications are administered periodically with breaks between doses. Each complete administration of the chemotherapy drugs is called a treatment cycle.

Your doctor and medical team decide duration as well method of administration of chemotherapy treatments. Chemotherapy may be given at different places which includes your home, a hospital outpatient department, a doctor’s office or clinic, or in a hospital. However, you need to visit hospital to monitor treatment and control side effect of chemotherapy treatment.