Essay On Chemotherapy

For some cancers, chemotherapy alone can destroy all the cancer cells and cure the cancer (primary treatment). As an adjuvant treatment, chemotherapy is given prior to, or after other methods, to increase the effectiveness of cancer treatment. Most often, adjuvant chemotherapy is given after other therapies have destroyed the clinically detectable cancer cells. The purpose of adjuvant chemotherapy is to reduce the risk of recurrence or to prolong survival. If cure is not possible, chemotherapy may be given to minimize the discomfort caused by cancer or slow the progression of the disease to prolong the patient's life (palliative treatment).

Types of Chemotherapy Drugs

Just like scalpels, lasers, and electric currents are used in surgery, the weapons used to fight cancer in chemotherapy are a host of anti-cancer drugs. How differently these drugs kill cancer cells, or prevent them from dividing, depends on their classification. Drugs in the same class kill cancer cells by the same mechanism: they all attack the same target within the cell.

Depending on the type of cancer and the kind of drug used, chemotherapy drugs may be administered differently. They can be administered orally (oral chemotherapy), or injected into a muscle (intramuscular injection), injected under the skin (subcutaneous injection), or into a vein (intravenous chemotherapy). In special cases, chemotherapy drugs may be injected into the fluid around the spine (intrathecal chemotherapy). Two or more methods of administration may be used at the same

2009). Importantly, sleep dysfunction may affect more than half of breast cancer patients and can be improved with exercise (Irwin, 2008a). However, few studies have attempted to investigate sleep in a systematic way. In addition to sleep problems, physical activity levels reduce significantly for many women after a diagnosis and remain low after treatment is complete (Irwin et al. 2003).