What Happens During Chemother... Health Article

What happens during chemotherapy depends on the type of drug or drugs you take.

Where You Have Chemotherapy

Most people have chemotherapy in an outpatient part of the hospital, at the doctor’s office, or at home. However, depending on the drugs you’re taking and your health, you may need to stay in the hospital to get chemotherapy.

How You Take Chemotherapy Drugs

You may take these drugs in a pill form or by injection, or in a combination of the two.

You take chemotherapy in cycles over a period of time. That means you may have to take the drugs once, followed by 3 weeks off. This schedule may continue for 4 to 8 cycles. The length of your cycles depends on the stage of your cancer. Having chemotherapy in cycles helps in several ways.

• It allows the drugs to kill more cancer cells because not all these cells are dividing at the same time.

• It allows your body to rest from the chemotherapy -- treatment damages rapidly dividing normal cells, too, such as mucous membranes and bone marrow cells.

• It gives you an emotional break between treatments.

Common Types of Chemotherapy Drugs Used for Breast Cancer

When you have breast cancer and take chemotherapy, you usually need more than one drug. This reduces the chance that your cancer will develop a resistance to one drug and improves the chance of successful treatment.

These are drugs that are commonly used to treat Stages I, II, and III of breast cancer.

• Four rounds of Adriamycin (doxorubicin) and Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide--known as AC)

• Four rounds of Taxol (paclitaxel)

If you have advanced breast cancer, it is likely you’ll get drugs like these.

• Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide), Adriamycin (doxorubicin), and CAF or FAC (fluorouracil)

• Adriamycin (doxorubicin), followed by CMF (fluorouracil)

• Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide), Matrex (methotrexate), and CMF (fluorouracil)   

You may be given other drugs, called adjunct drugs, during chemotherapy. These help the chemotherapy drugs work better or help fight side effects. For example, Wellcovorin (leucovorin), which works similarly in the body as the vitamin folic acid, helps counteract some of the side effects of chemotherapy. You may take it in a pill or by injection.