Cancer treatment: Things you didn't know about chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is a generic word and is used to denote any drug which kills or damages cancer cells, leading to better cancer control. Cancer treatment: Things you didn't know about chemotherapy In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Dr Ashish Gupta, American board-certified Medical Oncologist and Chief of Medical Oncology at Unique Hospital Cancer Centre in New Delhi's Dwarka, shared, “Chemotherapy, a well-established cancer treatment, uses drugs to target and destroy fast-growing cells. Its versatility allows it to be used either on its own or in combination with other treatments, forming part of a multimodal approach to cancer therapy.” Dr Amit Upadhaya, Sniorr Consultant - Medical Oncology at MASSH Hospital in New Delhi, revealed, “Chemotherapy is not a single drug but a group of more then 400 drugs. Though many chemotherapy drugs can have certain side effects but now as new agents are coming up, the side effect profile is also getting better and in fact many of the newer preparation have minimal side effects and are very safe even in patients of liver or kidney dysfunctions.” Dr Ashish Gupta highlighted a few things that you might not know about chemotherapy: Chemotherapy is not painful, and many patients can live a relatively normal life while undergoing treatment. Now a days a lot of research is being done in cancer treatment and many new targeted agents and biotherapy molecule, are coming up which are as good as or better than conventional chemotherapies.