Under normal conditions, cells within the body divide, grow and mature in response to chemical signals from the body. Cell division is tightly regulated, and too much or too little cell division can lead to disease. Cancer develops when cells within the body constantly divide, regardless of chemical signals from the body. The mutant cancer cells form a tumor that can eventually migrate and colonize in a number of distant organs. Although there are a many types of cancer, each with specific treatments strategies, there are a number of standard treatments for many forms of cancer.
Surgery
A common treatment for many forms of cancer is surgery, reports the American Cancer Society. Surgery may prove particularly effective in treating earlier-stage cancers with tumor cells localized within one part of an organ. During a cancer-removing surgery, the surgeon will remove all of, or as much of the tumor as possible. He may also remove a small margin of tissue around the tumor to remove as many cancer cells as possible to help prevent cancer recurrence. In some cases the surgeon will have to reconstruct tissue around the tumor--for example, a surgeon may use a bone graft to repair limb function after a bone cancer removal surgery. In cases of advanced cancer, patients may undergo surgery as part of palliative therapy, if tumor growth within a specific part of the body is causing discomfort and pain.
Radiation Therapy
Another standard treatment for many forms of cancer is radiation therapy. Cells exposed to radiation undergo severe damage; radiation severely damages the cell's DNA and generates chemicals called free radicals that damage other cellular structures. Doctors use this effect of radiation to damage cancer cells beyond repair, killing and shrinking the tumor. Radiation therapy generally involves applying a very high dose of radiation into a tumor, causing massive cancer cell damage. Since the radiation is largely localized to the tumor, neighboring healthy cells do not receive a large dose of radiation, so they are relatively unharmed. The small radiation exposure of other tissues, however, can lead to a number of side effects such as nausea and fatigue. In some cases, radiation therapy can also slightly increase the risk of developing another form of cancer, according to the American Cancer Society.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is another standard treatment for many cancers. Chemotherapy uses cytotoxic chemicals to damage cancer cells. Although chemotherapy drugs are not selective--they cannot specifically seek out and harm cancer cells--they most effectively harm rapidly dividing cells like cancer cells. Chemotherapy treatment drugs travel throughout the body in the bloodstream, so they can target cancer cells within several organs at once. This property makes chemotherapy an effective treatment for advanced cancers which have migrated and colonized in distant organs.
Since chemotherapy drugs harm healthy cells as well as cancer cells, patients receiving chemotherapy may experience a number of side effects, depending on the strength and duration of treatment. The most common side effects of chemotherapy are fatigue, nausea and vomiting, according to Medline Plus, a website of the National Institutes of Health. The side effects from chemotherapy typically go away after cessation of treatment.
