The Family Magazines of Michiana

Cancer is certainly one of the most frightening words for any patient to hear, but sometimes the anxiety is worsened when it’s attached to another word: chemotherapy. That’s why understanding how and why chemotherapy is used to treat cancer can go a long way in alleviating many concerns.

What exactly is chemotherapy?
The term chemotherapy simply refers to medications or drugs that fight cancer, just as the term antibiotic refers to any medications or drugs that fight infections. There are a wide range of medications used in breast cancer treatment and in various combinations. Some chemotherapy drugs are given intravenously (by vein), while others are oral (pills).

Does every breast cancer patient need chemotherapy?
No. Breast cancer treatment can involve any combination of surgery, radiation therapy (high intensity energy particles or waves to destroy cancer cells), chemotherapy, and/or hormonal therapy (medications that fight breast cancer by affecting hormone levels). In order to establish which treatment is best used at which time, multiple physicians are often involved in careful discussions to determine the optimal approach for a particular patient.

Chemotherapy is generally used in the adjuvant setting (after surgery) for patients with breast cancers that are at high risk of recurring (coming back in some other part of the body). It can also be used for patients in the neoadjuvant setting (before surgery) if shrinking down the cancer would help the surgery go better. Finally, patients with metastatic disease (cancer that has spread to other parts of the body) may receive chemotherapy to shrink or slow down the cancer.

I’ve heard that chemotherapy can be really terrible? Is it worth it?
After surgery, chemotherapy can definitely decrease the chance that the breast cancer will come back, but the key question is how much of a difference it will make. For some women who have very small, slow growing breast cancers, these additional therapies will likely not make a big positive impact since their chance of recurrence is already so low to begin with. But for women with more aggressive cancers, chemotherapy can make a significant improvement in their chance of being alive and well in the years to come.

These potential benefits must, of course, be balanced carefully against the side effects and risks of receiving chemotherapy. As mentioned above, the term chemotherapy can refer to a number of different drugs which have their own specific side effects, and they can be used in a variety of combinations as well. Generally speaking, chemotherapy for breast cancer can sometimes (but not always) cause fatigue, nausea, vomiting, immune system suppression, hair loss, sensory nerve numbness or tingling and other more rare but serious issues such as heart problems. This sounds quite frightening, but doctors always work with their patients to minimize side effects (for example, by giving effective anti-nausea medications) and monitor them closely to catch problems as early as possible.

Going through chemotherapy can be challenging and difficult, yet thousands of women have gone and will go through that experience safely. Our hope is that their lives will be better and fuller in the long run.