Cancer Treatment Options – Chemotherapy

Medical oncology, or chemotherapy, involves ingesting medicines, or drugs, to treat cancer.  Many times with chemotherapy, the cancer treatment regimen only requires medicine to be taken by the patient.  Other times, other treatments may require the patient to take cancer medicines before, or after, surgery, or with radiation (x-ray) treatment. Cancer chemotherapy is not new.  It has been helping people survive cancer since the early 1950’s. The chemotherapy drugs suggested by our cancer treatment team have been tested again and again. Careful research shows that chemotherapy works, and enables many cancer survivors to live full and happy lives.

Chemotherapy drugs are given either by mouth or through injection.  Because the drugs are introduced into the blood stream, cancer drug therapy is considered a body-wide (or systemic) treatment option.  Chemotherapy drug treatments are often accompanied by side effects like hair loss, nausea, and fatigue.  The side effects vary on the type of chemotherapy drugs being used, and from individual to individual.  Newer drugs that have been introduced are targeting the cancerous cells more efficiently, and may come with fewer side effects. 

The Shaw Regional Cancer Center medical oncology service offers daily care for patients requiring chemotherapy. Dr. Alexander Urquhart leads the Shaw Cancer Center medical oncology team.  He also coordinates with a team from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center to provide the most effective and efficient treatments possible.

For additional information, please visit the American Cancer Society.  

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