Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy, in its most general sense, is the treatment of disease by chemicals especially by killing micro-organisms or cancerous cells. In popular usage, it refers to antineoplastic drugs used to treat cancer or the combination of these drugs into a cytotoxic standardized treatment regimen.

What is Chemotherapy?

Chemotherapy literally refers to the treatment of certain diseases using specific chemicals that are destructive to malignant cells or to the causative agent of a disease such as a bacteria or virus. Therefore, the treatment can be broadly divided into two categories - cancer chemotherapy and antimicrobial chemotherapy.

How Chemotherapy Affects Daily Living

Chemotherapy Principles

Does Scalp Cooling Prevent Hair Loss During Chemotherapy?

Chemotherapy Treatment Schemes

History of Chemotherapy

What is 'Chemo Brain'?

Chemotherapy Types

Latest Chemotherapy News and Research

Two-gene interaction reveals metastatic risk in breast cancer

Why do some breast cancer patients face a much higher risk of distant metastasis, while others with seemingly similar disease experience far better outcomes?

7 Aug 2026

Combination therapy overcomes ferroptosis resistance in β-catenin-mutant hepatocellular carcinoma

The aberrant activation of the mTOR pathway and its crosstalk with other signaling cascades represent key drivers of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) progression. mTOR-mediated ferroptosis suppression has been implicated in HCC resistance to chemotherapy.

7 Aug 2026

Autophagy modulation emerges as a strategy against cisplatin-resistant gastric cancer

Drug resistance remains one of the greatest obstacles to successful treatment of gastric cancer, limiting the long-term effectiveness of the widely used chemotherapy drug cisplatin.

6 Aug 2026

Ferroptosis-based therapy shows promise for advanced prostate cancer treatment

A recent review explores the rapidly expanding field of ferroptosis-based therapy for prostate cancer, presenting ferroptosis as a promising strategy to overcome resistance in advanced and castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC).

6 Aug 2026

New study explores cholesterol-driven survival mechanisms in pancreatic cancer

A University of Oklahoma researcher has received a five-year, $2 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to investigate how pancreatic cancer uses cholesterol to survive chemotherapy.

6 Aug 2026

Study identifies a novel direct drug target for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Chemotherapy remains a cornerstone of treatment for head and neck cancers, the seventh-most common cancer type worldwide.

6 Aug 2026

Risk-adapted frameworks reshape pediatric neuroblastoma care

Neuroblastoma is the most common solid tumor outside the brain in children younger than five years old and accounts for about 15% of pediatric cancer deaths.

6 Aug 2026

Circular RNAs offer new pathways to reduce cancer therapy side-effects

A new review highlights the growing importance of circular RNAs (circRNAs) in addressing one of the most pressing challenges in modern oncology: treatment-related toxicity.

6 Aug 2026

Patient-derived tumor models strengthen precision oncology research

A research project funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), with collaborators around the country and the world, has generated one of the most extensive and diverse collections of patient-derived tumor models.

5 Aug 2026

Targeting lactylation could overcome cancer therapy resistance challenges

A growing body of scientific insight is transforming how cancer treatment resistance is understood, highlighting a powerful cellular process known as lactylation as a central driver of disease progression and therapeutic failure.

5 Aug 2026

Targeted dendritic cell vaccines emerge as a major step forward in cancer immunotherapy

A major step forward in cancer immunotherapy is emerging through the growing development of dendritic cell vaccines, a highly targeted approach designed to harness the body's own immune system to fight tumors.

5 Aug 2026

New portable blood testing device allows remote health monitoring

A new portable blood testing device could allow patient health to be monitored at home through an app.

5 Aug 2026

Novel drug puts cancer cells under extreme metabolic stress

Cancer cells have a voracious appetite for sugar-using it to fuel their rapid growth. This is why many scientists have tried to develop drugs that block cancer cells' metabolism by cutting off their sugar supply.

5 Aug 2026

Newly discovered immune pathway prevents fatal fungal infections in mice

An immune pathway has been discovered which prevents a normally harmless fungus developing into a fatal infection.

5 Aug 2026

Child-friendly lung test identifies subtle abnormalities before stem cell transplant

As spirometry requires coordinated deep breathing and can be challenging for children to perform, researchers from the USA, as part of the TRANSPIRE study investigating lung complications in children undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), explored the potential of oscillometry, a simple and child-friendly lung function test.

3 Aug 2026

UCLA researchers find strategy to improve prostate cancer therapies

UCLA researchers have identified a promising strategy to make a new class of targeted cancer therapies more effective against one of the deadliest forms of prostate cancer, potentially overcoming treatment resistance that has limited their success.

3 Aug 2026

RNA-based therapeutic strategy targets brain pathway behind cancer-associated cachexia

A new path has opened toward stopping cancer-associated cachexia, a devastating complication that gradually wastes patients away.

2 Aug 2026

Study offers a potential strategy to make nanoparticle-based cancer drugs more effective

A new study led by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has identified a way to reshape the gut microbiome that can enhance the delivery of certain chemotherapies to tumors, offering a potential strategy to make nanoparticle-based cancer drugs more effective.

31 Jul 2026

Scientists map protective cell networks hiding dormant breast tumor cells

Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), Imperial College London and UCL Genetics Institute have created a detailed map of cells within breast tumors and identified distinct neighborhoods of proliferating and dormant cells.

31 Jul 2026

QUANTUM trial tests immune-targeting approach for primary plasma cell leukemia

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology today announced the activation of The QUANTUM Trial (Alliance A062401), a clinical study designed to test a novel, immune-targeting approach for patients newly diagnosed with primary plasma cell leukemia (PCL).

30 Jul 2026