Question: what is chemo therapy?

Isabel Pires answered on 13 Mar 2015:

In chemotherapy treatments, the doctors give the cancer patient a medication that will hopefully kill the cancers cells specifically. It is normally given directly into the blood or, in some cases, by taking a tablet. Chemotherapy drugs act by causing damage to the DNA of the cell in such a way that it leads to its death.

However, chemotherapy has side effects. Chemotherapy targets cells which are dividing fast (such as in the cancer). However, other normal cells in the body that also divide fast, such as hair roots, skin, the lining of the gut and white blood cells, are also affected. This is why some cancer patients having chemo can loose their hair and feel sick and tired.

So now scientists (such as myself) are trying to discover new, clever treatments to kill the tumour with less side effects. This can be done by either using medication which is very specific to the tumour alone, and therefore does not affect normal cells, or by giving these new types of medication at the same time as chemotherapy to make the cancer cells more sensitive to them, and/or decreasing the effects on normal cells.