Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is the use of toxic chemicals to kill tumor cells.

The chemical drugs are administered intravenously (using a catheter injected into a vein) or in tablets, and are usually formulations of different compounds with specific, complementary effects.

They might even include compounds of targeted therapies .

CHEMOTHERAPY CAN BE USED AS ADJUVANT OR NEO ADJUVANT TREATMENT, AND TO TREAT CANCER IN METASTATIC PHASE.

An adjuvant treatment is one performed after the surgical removal of the initial tumor.

After the removal of a tumor, it is difficult to be sure that no tumor cells have escaped since they can acquire the ability to move and go to other tissues and organs.
The surgeon to prevent this already extracts a perimeter of healthy tissue around the tumor, but radiotherapy or chemotherapy treatments to eliminate any remaining rough cells may also be advised after surgery. This type of therapy - called adjuvant treatments - is used to potentiate the results of other therapies.

In other situations, the treatment may be neoadjuvant, in which case a pre-surgical treatment is used to reduce the size of the tumor and facilitate its removal, or even to allow a more conservative surgery (for example to avoid a colostomy).