Chemotherapy

One or more anti-cancer medications are used as part of a regular chemotherapy programme in chemotherapy, a kind of cancer treatment. Chemotherapy may be administered with the intention of curing (which usually typically requires medication combinations), extending life, or reducing symptoms (palliative chemotherapy).

One of the main subspecialties of the medical field known as medical oncology, which is dedicated exclusively to pharmacotherapy for cancer, is chemotherapy.

Inhibition of DNA repair can complement chemotherapy since the word “chemotherapy” has evolved to refer to the non-specific use of intracellular toxins to prevent mitosis (cell division) or cause DNA damage. More specialised drugs that inhibit extracellular signals are not included by the phrase chemotherapy’s meaning (signal transduction).

Hormone therapies are currently defined as the development of treatments with particular molecular or genetic targets that block the growth-promoting signals from traditional endocrine hormones (mainly estrogens for breast cancer and androgens for prostate cancer). The term “targeted treatment” is used to describe various growth-signal inhibitions, such as those linked to receptor tyrosine kinases.