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Chemotherapy is an aggressive form of chemical drug therapy meant to destroy rapidly growing cells in the body. It’s usually used to treat cancer, as cancer cells grow and divide faster than other cells.

A doctor who specializes in cancer treatment is known as an oncologist. They’ll work with you to come up with your treatment plan.

Chemotherapy has been proven to effectively attack cancer cells, but it can cause serious side effects that can severely impact your quality of life. You should weigh these side effects against the risk of going untreated when deciding if chemotherapy is right for you.

Chemotherapy is also used to prepare you for other treatments. It could be used to shrink a tumor so it can be surgically removed, or to prepare you for radiation therapy.

In the case of late-stage cancer, chemotherapy may help relieve pain.

Besides treatment for cancer, chemotherapy may be used to prepare people with bone marrow diseases for a bone marrow stem cell treatment, and it may be used for immune system disorders.

Credit : Healthline 

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In some cases, your doctor may decide that he or she needs a sample of your tissue or your cells to help diagnose an illness or identify a cancer. The removal of tissue or cells for analysis is called a biopsy.

While a biopsy may sound scary, it’s important to remember that most are entirely pain-free and low-risk procedures. Depending on your situation, a piece of skin, tissue, organ, or suspected tumor will be surgically removed and sent to a lab for testing.

If you have been experiencing symptoms normally associated with cancer, and your doctor has located an area of concern, he or she may order a biopsy to help determine if that area is cancerous.

A biopsy is the only sure way to diagnosis most cancers. Imaging tests like CT scans and X-rays can help identify areas of concerns, but they can’t differentiate between cancerous and noncancerous cells.

Biopsies are typically associated with cancer, but just because your doctor orders a biopsy, it doesn’t mean that you have cancer. Doctors use biopsies to test whether abnormalities in your body are caused by cancer or by other conditions.

For example, if a woman has a lump in her breast, an imaging test would confirm the lump, but a biopsy is the only way to determine whether it’s breast cancer or another noncancerous condition, such as polycystic fibrosis.

Credit : Healthline 

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A tumor (also called neoplasm) is an abnormal mass of cells in the body. It is caused by cells dividing more than normal or not dying when they should. Tumors can be classified as benign or malignant.

Malignant tumors have cells that grow uncontrollably and spread locally and/or to distant sites. Malignant tumors are cancerous (ie, they invade other sites). They spread to distant sites via the bloodstream or the lymphatic system. This spread is called metastasis. Metastasis can occur anywhere in the body and most commonly is found in the liver, lungs, brain, and bone.

Malignant tumors can spread rapidly and require treatment to avoid spread. If they are caught early, treatment is likely to be surgery with possible chemotherapy or radiotherapy. If the cancer has spread, the treatment is likely to be systemic, such as chemotherapy or immunotherapy.

The cancer cells that move to other parts of the body are the same as the original ones, but they have the ability to invade other organs. If lung cancer spreads to the liver, for example, the cancer cells in the liver are still lung cancer cells.

Credit : JAMA Network 

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