Chemotherapy is basically the use of a drug to treat any disease. But for most people, the word is associated with drugs that are used solely for the treatment of cancer. It is also often shortened and referred to as chemo. The negative aspects of chemotherapy are surgery and radiation therapy, which generally work to kill, damage, or remove the cancer cells in the affected area. Chemotherapy targets the cancer cells that have spread in the body. This helps in destroying the cells that have spread to body parts that are far from the primary affected area as well.

What are the primary goals of chemotherapy?
Not every type of cancer treatment involves chemotherapy. When the doctor recommends chemo for the patient, it is important that they understand the main aim of carrying out this type of therapy before giving their consent. The three primary objectives of chemotherapy are curing, controlling, and palliating. When it comes to curing, chemo is basically done to ensure that cancer does not come back and is destroyed as far as possible.

In case curing is not a possibility, then the goal is to achieve disease control as far as possible. Chemotherapy is also used to reduce tumor size or to stop cancer from spreading further. This helps the person who is affected with cancer to live longer and feel better. In a lot of cases, there is no guarantee of cancer to not come back. But with chemotherapy, it may definitely be managed and controlled like any other chronic disease or there could be a recurrence.

There is another facet of chemotherapy that is known as palliative chemotherapy or palliation. When somebody is suffering from an advanced stage of cancer, where the disease is no more under control, the main goal is to give some more days for the person to live better or to lead a better quality of life. In such cases, tumors causing pain may be shrunk with the help of palliation.

How to plan chemotherapy treatments
Here are a few steps to plan chemotherapy treatment for a cancer patient.

Depending upon the patient’s health, the oncologist will advise them about the kind of drug or the combination of medicines that will be ideal for carrying out chemotherapy. The choice of drugs often depends on the following factors: age of the patient, cancer type, types of cancer treatments given earlier,  and health of the patient

Depending on the type and stage of cancer, the oncologist will also decide the frequency and the duration of the required treatment.

Even after the drugs and the schedule for chemotherapy have been finalized, the oncologist may revise the treatment and the dosage depending upon how the patient reacts to it. Sometimes, the patient may need multiple sessions of chemotherapy at a stretch, after which they may take rest for a couple of days. On the other hand, there may also be cases wherein the patient faces adverse side effects of chemotherapy, which in turn, will require an immediate change in the course of treatment.