Cancer development begins when previously healthy cells throughout the body acquire genetic mutations that interfere with normal cell behavior. These mutations allow the cells to proliferate rapidly without regulation, give rise to unlimited daughter cells and evade cellular death, ultimately forming a tumor. Chemotherapy seeks to use one or more toxic drugs to stop cancer cell growth by damaging essential structures and pathways, so that the cell can no longer support itself. Chemotherapy has a number of benefits as an effective cancer treatment.
Systemic Treatment
One major benefit of chemotherapy as a cancer treatment is systemic action. Since chemo drugs typically travel throughout the body via the bloodstream, all the cells and tissues in the body become exposed to the drug. As a result, chemotherapy can kill cancer cells not only at the original tumor site but in any other regions of cancer growth. This benefit of chemotherapy is especially advantageous in treating metastatic cancers, when cancer cells may be growing in multiple distant organs at once. Unlike surgery or radiation therapy, which treat one region of the body at a time, chemotherapy allows doctors to effectively treat metastatic and advanced forms of cancer.
Helps Form Effective Drug Cocktails
One hallmark of cancer cells is the ability to become resistant to drugs. Rapidly proliferating cancer cells can quickly acquire genetic mutations, and these mutations can occasionally counteract or circumvent the mechanism of action of a specific cancer drug, according to ChemoCare.com. As a result, over time patients may fail to respond to drugs that were effective in the past. Chemotherapy drugs target a wide range of cellular processes, so using a combination of chemotherapy drugs allows doctors to damage cancer cells through a number of distinct mechanism. This combined chemotherapy approach reduces the risk of developing cancer resistance, since the cancer must become resistant to two or more drugs to recur.
Broad Mechanism of Action
Although chemotherapy is used to treat cancer, chemotherapy drugs often attack rapidly proliferating cells regardless of their origin and genetic pattern. Although this can lead to side effects from chemo treatment, this property of chemotherapy drugs also benefits patients, since chemo drugs can target cancer cells regardless of their genetic makeup. Some forms of cancer therapy, such as hormonal therapies or antibody-based therapies, rely on the presence of specific proteins within the cancer cell to halt cancer growth. If the cancer cells stop making the target protein, the drug no longer effectively kills the cells, and the cancer can recur. As a result, patients may require medical testing before and during treatment to determine whether their cancer will respond to specific therapies. The broad nature of chemotherapy allows the drug to target a wide range of cancer types, effectively treating a wide range of cancers.
