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.

History of Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy Types

How Chemotherapy Affects Daily Living

What is 'Chemo Brain'?

Chemotherapy Principles

Chemotherapy Treatment Schemes

Does Scalp Cooling Prevent Hair Loss During Chemotherapy?

Latest Chemotherapy News and Research

Mitochondrial stress triggers long-term protection against heart damage

Mitochondria are popularly known as the "powerhouse of the cell," but these cellular structures do so much more-including acting as signaling hubs.

4 Sep 2026

High-dose folic acid appears safe from formaldehyde toxicity

Folic acid – an essential vitamin added to flour and cereals and prescribed at high doses for cancer patients and people with blood disorders – does not elevate toxic formaldehyde in the body, according to a new Cornell University study on mice and human cancer patients who consumed high doses.

2 Sep 2026

Daraxonrasib shows durable responses in RAS-mutant lung cancer

Daraxonrasib, an oral RAS inhibitor therapy, achieved durable responses in pretreated patients with RAS-mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in a Phase 1/2 trial led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

2 Sep 2026

Newly diagnosed AML patients benefit from less-intensive combination treatment

Investigators from the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute have found that adults with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (AML) receiving a less-intensive combination of azacitidine and venetoclax had more than twice as much time before treatment failed, the leukemia returned or worsened, or they died, compared with patients receiving intensive chemotherapy.

2 Sep 2026

Giving immunotherapy before surgery boosts brain tumor treatment success

A team from UNIGE and HUG has shown that administering cell immunotherapy before surgery to remove a brain tumor is significantly more effective than administering it afterwards.

2 Sep 2026

Penn Medicine tests FLASH proton therapy for cancer patients

A new form of proton therapy-designed to deliver cancer-killing radiation therapy in less than a second, through fewer total sessions, with potentially less risk of damaging side effects-is now being tested in a Phase I clinical trial at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania.

1 Sep 2026

Immunotherapy shows potential for treating rising gynecological tumors

Gynecological tumors, including cervical cancer (CC), endometrial cancer (EC), and ovarian cancer (OC), represent a significant global health burden for women.

1 Sep 2026

AI tools map tumor architecture to predict treatment response

Spatial transcriptomics is a powerful tool to create a detailed map of not just how genes are expressed in a piece of tissue, but also where genetic activity takes place in different cells and locations within the tissue.

31 Aug 2026

New dual-drug strategy blocks triple-negative breast cancer growth

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has a frustrating ability to adapt. Although this aggressive form of breast cancer can initially respond well to chemotherapy, cancer cells often find ways to survive, allowing the disease to return and become resistant to treatment.

31 Aug 2026

Breast cancer survivors could avoid lifelong heart medication, research suggests

Many breast cancer survivors whose treatment caused them to develop problems with their heart function can safely stop their medication after their heart recovers and most won't need to continue treatment long-term, according to a study funded by the British Heart Foundation and presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Munich.

30 Aug 2026

FDA approves daraxonrasib for metastatic pancreatic cancer following landmark clinical trial led by Dana-Farber

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved daraxonrasib, an oral multi-selective RAS(ON) inhibitor, for adults with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma who have received at least one prior systemic therapy or are not candidates for multiagent systemic therapy.

From Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Inc. 29 Aug 2026

Study shows how cancer can act as a systemic disease

In their quest to understand how cancers take root, grow and spread, scientists have for the past half-century explored the genetic aberrations and microenvironmental peculiarities of tumors and their constituent cells.

28 Aug 2026

The US switch in shingles vaccines revealed an unexpected heart health pattern

In a natural experiment involving 72,920 propensity-matched US adults aged 60 years and older, recombinant shingles vaccination was associated with a 9% lower cardiovascular disease burden over seven years compared with the live attenuated vaccine. Lower burdens of ischemic heart disease and heart failure were seen in both sexes, while ischemic stroke was significantly lower only among men, supporting further clinical trials and mechanistic studies

27 Aug 2026

CAR T-cell therapy successfully reverses severe rheumatoid arthritis

Immunotherapies such as CAR T-cell therapy are used primarily to treat cancer. In the future, these patient-specific therapies, manufactured from patients' own immune cells, could also help cure autoimmune diseases.

27 Aug 2026

Study challenges traditional breast cancer classification methods

Breast cancer is often classified as either estrogen receptor-positive (hormone-sensitive) or not. However, a new study from Karolinska Institutet suggests that this simplified classification may overlook important biological differences between patients that could affect treatment decisions.

27 Aug 2026

FDA approves first RAS-targeted therapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer

27 Aug 2026

New review examines oral cancer drug delivery barriers and strategies

Delivering drugs directly to oral tumor sites remains challenging. A recent review involving researchers from Hasanuddin University examines barriers to local drug delivery and analyses strategies for targeting oral cancer lesions.

26 Aug 2026

Real-world Chinese study confirms benefits of niraparib maintenance therapy for ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer remains one of the most lethal gynecologic malignancies worldwide, with a high risk of recurrence even after successful initial treatment.

26 Aug 2026

Standard memory tests fail to detect post-chemotherapy brain fog

Standard memory tests such as word-pair or list-learning tests used in clinics may fail to detect the real-life memory problems reported by many female breast cancer survivors after chemotherapy.

25 Aug 2026

New discovery helps identify colorectal cancer patients at risk for metastasis

Researchers from the University of Turku in Finland and Gustave Roussy Institute in France have discovered a molecular mechanism that regulates whether the cells of an aggressive colorectal cancer are conventional or inverted when they spread in the body.

25 Aug 2026