Lung chemotherapy is used to kill cancer cells or make them less active. Lung chemotherapy work by killing rapidly dividing cells. Since cancer cells divide very frequently than other cells, they are mainly susceptible to these medicines.
Different chemotherapy medications work at different steps of cell division. For this reason, generally two or more medicines are given at the same time to kill as many cancer cells as possible.
Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment that works to kill cancer cells anywhere in body. It is particularly helpful if cancer cells may have increase beyond the areas that are treated by radiation and surgery. Chemotherapy may be used for various reasons;
- To cure cancer- lung cancer may be cured by chemotherapy but this is more common with cancer such as leukemia.
-To shrink a tumor before surgery; in some case, chemotherapy is used before surgery to shrink a tumor and improve the chances that surgery will be effective.
-To help with symptoms of cancer when a tumor is causing symptoms such as pain or shortness of breathe, sometimes chemotherapy can reduce the size of the tumor to decrease symptoms. It is also used as an addition to surgery.