Chemotherapy and cancer

This page tells you about chemotherapy for cancer. There is information about

What chemotherapy is
How chemotherapy is used

Chemotherapy literally means drug treatment. In cancer treatment, the term chemotherapy means treatment with cell killing (cytotoxic) drugs. You may have just one chemotherapy drug or a combination of different chemotherapy drugs. There are more than 90 different drugs currently available and new ones are being developed all the time.

Whether chemotherapy is a suitable treatment for you, and which drugs you might have, depends on many things

The type of cancer you have
Where in your body the cancer started
What the cancer cells look like under the microscope (the grade)
Whether the cancer has spread
Your general health

You may have chemotherapy as a single drug or a combination of drugs. You may have it on its own or with other treatments such as

Radiotherapy
Surgery
Hormone therapy
Biological therapy
A combination of any of these treatments

You may have high dose chemotherapy treatment, with a drip (infusion) of stem cells or bone marrow cells afterwards. This is called a bone marrow transplant or stem cell transplant. There is information about these treatments in the bone marrow transplant and stem cell transplant section of CancerHelp UK.