Chemotherapy and Cancer Immunotherapy
No two cancer journeys are the same. It’s why our doctors use a variety of methods to treat your specific type of cancer. Chemotherapy and immunotherapy are two of the more common therapies used to treat cancer. While they work differently, they can be used together, or in combination, with surgery and radiation therapy.
What is Chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy, also known as chemo, uses drugs that are cytotoxic, meaning they can kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy is called a systemic treatment, because the drugs travel throughout the body to find and kill cancer cells that have spread (metastasized) to other parts of the body away from the primary tumor.
When a doctor recommends chemotherapy, it’s important to understand the goals of treatment:
- Cure: Cancer is destroyed and doesn’t return.
- Control: Chemotherapy is used to shrink tumors and/or stop the cancer from growing and spreading.
- Palliation: Chemotherapy is used to ease symptoms caused by the cancer.
Chemotherapy drugs vary in their chemical composition, how they’re prescribed, how useful they are in treating certain types of cancer and the side effects they cause.
How Does Chemotherapy Work?
What Chemotherapy Does
When a new cell is formed, it goes through a process called the cell cycle. Chemotherapy drugs target cells at different phases of the cell cycle.
Cancer cells tend to form new cells faster than normal cells, making them a better target for chemotherapy. Chemotherapy drugs can’t tell the difference between normal cells and cancer cells. This causes normal cells to be damaged along with the cancer cells. Most normal cells will recover from the effects of chemo, but cancer cells typically can’t, which is why chemotherapy is good at killing many types of cancer cells.
How is Chemotherapy Administered?
There are a number of ways to administer chemotherapy. The most common include:
- Intravenous (IV): Directly into a vein.
- Oral: Through swallowing pills, capsules or liquids.
- Injection: A shot in a muscle in your arm, thigh or hip, or right under the skin in the fatty part of your belly, arm or leg.
- Intraperitoneal (IP): Administered directly into the peritoneal cavity, where organs like the intestines, liver and stomach are located.
- Intrathecal: Injected into the space between the layers of tissue that cover the brain and spinal cord.
- Intra-arterial (IA): Injected directly into the artery that leads to the cancer.
- Topical: Through a cream you rub onto your skin.
How Long Does Chemotherapy Last?
Chemotherapy is usually administered in cycles. Each cycle includes chemotherapy treatment followed by a period of rest. This gives your body a chance to recover before the next cycle begins. The number of cycles depends on the type of cancer, size of tumor and drugs used.
Types of Chemotherapy
- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is given to a person before their main course of treatment. The goal is to shrink a cancerous tumor before moving onto other treatments, such as surgery.
- Adjuvant chemotherapy is given after a person’s main course of treatment to lower the risk of the cancer coming back.
- Palliative chemotherapy is used when the cancer has spread, and chemotherapy isn‘t being used to cure the cancer. The main goal of palliative treatment is to improve quality of life by shrinking the cancer and reducing symptoms.
What is Cancer Immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy is a treatment that uses a person's own immune system to fight cancer. The immune system helps your body fight infections and other diseases. Immunotherapy can boost or change how the immune system works, so it can find and attack cancer cells.
Immunotherapy is used by itself for some cancers, but for others, it works better when used with other treatments. Certain cancers respond better to immunotherapy than others.
Over the years, immunotherapy has become an important part of treating certain types of cancer. New immunotherapy treatments are continuously tested and approved for use.
How Cancer Immunotherapy is Administered
Most often, immunotherapy medications go directly into a vein (intravenously), are received on the skin (topical) or go in the bladder (intravesical), a method used for early-stage cancers.
Cancer Immunotherapy Side Effects
Side effects are possible with immunotherapy. This happens when the immune system stimulated to fight cancer cells also acts against healthy cells and tissues in the body.
Your care team will go over your unique treatment plan with you in detail to ensure you’re comfortable with the approach. We understand that cancer experiences are deeply personal. Our experts will help guide you, and your family, through every step of your treatment.