Therapeutic or Preventive Procedure
chemotherapy
che·mo·ther·a·py [ kee-moh-ther-uh-pee, kem-oh- ]
Definitions related to chemotherapy:
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Application of the beneficial effects of drugs to control or cure diseases or abnormal states in living organisms or tissues.CRISP ThesaurusNational Institutes of Health, 2006
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The use of chemicals to treat disease; often used to destroy cancer cells.Harvard Dictionary of Health TermsHarvard Medical Publishing, 2011
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The use of synthetic or naturally-occurring chemicals for the treatment of diseases.NCI ThesaurusU.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
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Treatment with anticancer drugs.NCI Dictionary of Cancer TermsU.S. National Cancer Institute, 2021
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(cancer chemotherapy) Normally, your cells grow and die in a controlled way. Cancer cells keep growing without control. Chemotherapy is drug therapy for cancer. It works by killing the cancer cells, stopping them from spreading, or slowing their growth. However, it can also harm healthy cells, which causes side effects. You may have a lot of side effects, some, or none at all. It depends on the type and amount of chemotherapy you get and how your body reacts. Some common side effects are fatigue, nausea, vomiting, pain, and hair loss. There are ways to prevent or control some side effects. Talk with your health care provider about how to manage them. Healthy cells usually recover after chemotherapy is over, so most side effects gradually go away. Your treatment plan will depend on the cancer type, the chemotherapy drugs used, the treatment goal, and how your body responds. Chemotherapy may be given alone or with other treatments. You may get treatment every day, every week, or every month. You may have breaks between treatments so that your body has a chance to build new healthy cells. You might take the drugs by mouth, in a shot, as a cream, or intravenously (by IV). NIH: National Cancer InstituteMedlinePlusU.S. National Library of Medicine, 2021
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Chemotherapy involves the use of drugs to destroy cancer cells. Although an ideal drug would destroy cancer cells without harming normal cells, most drugs are not that selective. Instead, drugs are designed to inflict greater damage on cancer cells than on normal cells, typically by using drugs that affect a cell's ability to grow....Merck & Co., Inc., 2020
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Chemotherapy is a drug treatment that uses powerful chemicals to kill fast-growing cells in your body.Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research
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Chemotherapy, the treatment of diseases by chemical compounds. Chemotherapeutic drugs were originally those employed against infectious microbes, but the term has been broadened to include anticancer and other drugs. Until the end of the 19th century, most drugs were derived either from minerals or...Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 2020
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