Chemotherapy treatment is the use of cytotoxic drugs to treat disease. Upon entering the cell, chemo drugs often interfere with proteins or molecules within cells and tissues, rendering the cell unable to proliferate. In some cases, the drugs also directly damage the cell, promoting cell death. Chemotherapy treatment has a number of potential uses in treating disease.
Cancer Treatment
A common use for chemotherapy is curative cancer treatment. Since chemotherapy drugs target rapidly-proliferating cells, chemotherapy treatment can help stop cancer growth and induce cancer cell death. A number of chemotherapy drugs are approved for use in treating a range of cancers with the intent of inducing cancer remission. Patients receiving chemotherapy often receive a number chemotherapy doses over a period of weeks, inducing waves of cancer cell death to treat cancer growth. Since chemotherapy treatments can also target healthy tissues, however, patients may develop a number of side effects of treatment. MedlinePlus indicates that the most common side effects of cancer chemotherapy are nausea, fatigue, pain and hair loss.
Palliative Chemotherapy
Another use for chemotherapy is palliative treatment for cancer patients. During cancer development, progressive tumor growth can place pressure on healthy tissues and nerves, leading to chronic and sometimes debilitating pain. In addition, cancer growth within previously healthy organs can inhibit organ functioning, leading to a decreased quality of life due to organ damage.
Palliative chemotherapy aims to slow cancer growth and slightly reduce the size of cancerous tumors within the patient, relieving pain and increasing patient quality of life. The Colon Cancer Resource indicates that patients receiving palliative chemotherapy often receive one or two three- to four-week rounds of chemotherapy, then may continue taking chemo drugs in the absence of harmful side effects. Through the use of palliative treatments such as chemotherapy, doctors can help provide comfort to cancer patients as their disease progresses.
Autoimmune Disorders
In some cases, chemotherapy drugs can treat autoimmune disorders. Under normal conditions, the immune system in the body responds to the presence of foreign particles, allergens and infectious agents in the body. The presence of these factors signals for an activation of immune system cells, which then engulf and destroy the particles. In an auto-immune disease, the abnormal activation of the immune system causes immune cells to attack healthy tissues, leading to potentially fatal diseases.
According to the Merck Manuals Online Medical Library, severe autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus may require treatment with the chemotherapy drugs cyclophosphamide and mesna. Treatment with chemotherapy drugs can allow doctors to decrease the number of active immune system cells in the blood, decreasing inflammation in the body and stopping the immune system attack on healthy tissue.
