You’ve been diagnosed with cancer. You studied your treatment options and you and your doctor have agreed that chemotherapy is your best choice. And you have questions about your treatment.

Remember that in addition to reading reliable information about your treatment, you can also count on your doctor and nurse. Open and honest communication between you and your cancer care team is the best way to understand what is happening to you, your body, and your cancer.

Chemotherapy is the use of medicines (or drugs) to treat disease. We sometimes call this type of treatment just “chemo.” Although surgery and radiation therapy destroy or damage cancer cells in a specific area, chemotherapy works throughout the body. Chemotherapy drugs can destroy cancer cells that have metastasized or spread to parts of the body far from the primary (original) tumor.

More than 100 chemotherapy drugs are used in various combinations. Although a single chemotherapy drug can be used to treat cancer, generally they are more powerful when used with other drugs. Your chemotherapy treatment probably will consist of more than one drug. This is called combination chemotherapy. A combination chemotherapy treatment after surgery can reduce the risk of recurrence.

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