what is chemotherapy?
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Chemotherapy has two meanings:\n\n1. The treatment of cancer using specific chemical agents or drugs that are selectively destructive to malignant cells and tissues. \n\n2. The treatment of disease using chemical agents or drugs that are selectively toxic to the causative agent of the disease, such as a virus, bacterium, or other microorganism.
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a cell mutates, divides and spreads, that is it. to cure cancer go to the source listed below.
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Chemotherapy is not always used to treat cancer. It depends on the cancer you have and where it is. Sometimes surgery and radiation together are more then sufficient to irradiate the disease. A common myth about chemo is that you'll always lose your hair or be nauseated the whole time - but its not true in all cases. The best thing is to ask your doctor why you're on the chemo, what the side effects are, and has it been proven to help with the cancer that you have. Be an informed consumer and don't always assume the doctor has all the right answers.
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Chemotherapy (one of the treatments for some kinds of cancers) can cause hair loss. It kills rapidly growing cells like those int he hair follicles or the linign of the gut.\nBut hair doesn't always fall out and there are things like cold caps that can be worn on the head to help prevent hair loss.
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I'm not sure about treatment, but for info check out the leukemia and lymphoma society. Also, there are several books written on it, so check your local library. I don't remember the names of any of them, but some of them were pretty easy to understand.
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There are many weapons in our arsenal against cancer. Some can cure certain cancers. Some can slow the cancer's advance down. No one approach cures all cancers.\n\nTypically once a cancer has metastasized and become cancers in the abdomen, the outlook is much worse, I am sorry to say. \n\n\nHere is a range of some of the types of cancer therapies:\n\nYou can cut it out. \n\nYou can try to kill the fast growing cancer cells with radiation or chemotherapy.\n\nYou can use drugs that target the blood supplies of the cancer (angiogenesis).\n\nYou can use molecular biology to design medications that bind to the receptors on the cancer cells and prevent them from functioning. \n\nThere are a range of other drugs that inhibit certain processes in the cancer cell (see ref).\n\nAntibody treatments like monoclonal antibodies. \n\nBiological response modifiers like immunotherapy, cytokine therapy.
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Direct application of anti-cancer drugs to cancer cells. Being able to scrape the junk that builds up on arteries and leads to heart attacks.\n\nStuff like that.
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Visit http://chemotherapy.big.com/
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Chemotherapy is a prescription so a doctor's script is needed. The Emergency Room doesn't have the medications available to fill your mother's chemo prescription nor do they have the types of physicians available to administer and monitor chemotherapy. If your mother requires chemo, the prescribing physician is required to assist you in obtaining this treatment.
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A transplant allows you to have much higher doses of chemotherapy than usual, which may help to improve the chances of curing some types of cancer, leukaemia or lymphoma, or prolonging a remission. Remission is where there is no sign of the cancer.\nVery high doses of chemotherapy, sometimes with radiotherapy, are usually given over a few days. The high-dose treatment destroys the bone marrow and stem cells. So, after the high-dose treatment you will be given a drip (infusion) of either:\nyour own stem cells (autologous treatment) \nor stem cells from a donor (allogeneic transplant).\nBoth of these procedures are often called transplants. But, strictly speaking, only situations where stem cells are taken from someone else are actually transplants. So, throughout this section, the term high-dose treatment with stem cell support is used, rather than autologous treatment.\nHigh-dose treatment with stem cell support, and allogeneic transplants are different treatments, with different risks and possible side effects.\n\nThere are four main steps in the process of both high-dose treatment with stem cell support and allogeneic transplants. These are described briefly below and explained further throughout this section.\n\nThe first step is to reduce the leukaemia or cancer to as low a level as possible, using chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy. Ideally you should have no detectable cancer (this is known as being in remission) at the time of your high-dose treatment. This gives the best possible chance for the treament to work. However, it may also be done if there is only a small amount of cancer still present.\n\nThe second step is the collection of the stem cells from you or your donor. This is known as the harvest.\n\nThe third step is the high-dose treatment. The aim is to remove any remaining cancer cells from your body. You may be treated with chemotherapy alone. Sometimes radiotherapy is given as well. This intensive treatment will completely destroy all your normal bone marrow. This step is sometimes called the conditioning regimen and usually lasts only a few days. It can make you feel very ill and sick. You will be given anti-sickness (anti-emetic) drugs, which may also make you feel sleepy. These drugs are very effective, and can usually control feelings of sickness (nausea) and vomiting.\n\nThe fourth step is to give the stem cells to you through a drip. This is a bit like having a blood transfusion. It will be 2–4 weeks before the cells find their way through the bloodstream into the bone marrow and start to make new blood cells for you. You will need to be in hospital until the number of blood cells in your blood stream has gone back to a safe level.\nWhile your level of healthy blood cells is low, you will need to have antibiotics. This is because you will have very little resistance to infection. You may be given injections of growth factors (G-CSF) to help your bone marrow to make new blood cells more quickly. You will also need to have blood and platelet transfusions. You may be looked after in a room on your own to protect you from infection. During this time you will need constant medical and nursing support.
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Taxol is a new concept in the treatment of cancer because it acts on the microtubules found in cells, whereas earlier anti cancer drugs act on the DNA of the cancer cells. Microtubules  are responsible for keeping the shape of the cell by forming a structure called the cytoskeleton. They are also involved in controlling the positions of chromosomes during cell division.\nMolecules of a cellular protein called tubulin link together to form microtubules, but in the presence of Taxol, these microtubules are shorter than normal and very stable. Due to this, the microtubules cannot carry out their function during cell division. The cell becomes congested with these microtubules and therefore the cycle of cell division (mitosis) is disrupted and cell death occurs.
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Remission: Disappearance of the signs and symptoms of cancer or other disease. When this happens, the disease is said to be "in remission." A remission can be temporary or permanent.
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Google L690.......All you can find is that it is a chemotherapy drug.  Haven't seen any images.
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chemotherapy dosing is a critical issue. If the dose is to low it will not have the desired effect, two high and it will cause more side effects. There are some chemotherapy drugs that have little or no side effects, is that what you are looking for? Ask your oncologist about the risks and benefits of each treatment. They will be able to explain each drug and the probability of side effects
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depends on her health and care she gets after it.  my grandma got chemotherapy in 1993. she is around 80(at least ) now. she is quite week but it is not only due to chemotherapy. other old age problems.
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Most chemotherapy drugs kills cells while they are dividing. Cancer cells divide faster then normal cells.  That is why the chemo kills cancer cells more than normal cells.  Other cells that divide fast are immune cells, blood cells, hair cells and the cells in the lining of the stomach.  This is why the side effects of may chemo agents are immunosuppression, anemia, hair loss and mucositis/stomatitis.  \n\nDifferent chemo agents stop the cell cycle in different ways.  Some are antimetabolites and block the use of vitamin necessary for cell division.  Some bind to the tubules and don't allow the cell to divide.  The mechanisms vary but the end result is the same.  Cell death.
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Hi .. this is a tough one. Paclitaxel (TAXOL) is most commonly used in combination chemotheraphy, ie with some other anticancer drug, most commonly, it would be doxorubicin. The regimens vary according to pre-operative staging and biopsy findings, however there would be most commonly up to 6-8 cycles of chemotherapy, 1 cycle every 3 weeks makes it 18-24 weeks. Again it is really hard to tell as no data provided.