Health Topic

Cancer Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy may help you fight the spread of cancer. Find out about the types of chemotherapy and side effects.

Reviewed Reviewed by a registered pharmacistGeneral information

Important: This page is general information, not medical advice. It does not recommend or prescribe any treatment. Always consult your doctor or pharmacist before starting, stopping or changing any medicine.

About Cancer Chemotherapy

Cancer chemotherapy is a type of cancer treatment. It uses medicines to destroy cancer cells.

Normally, your body forms new cells as needed, replacing old cells that die. Cancer cells keep growing without control. New cells grow even when you don't need them, and old cells don't die when they should. These extra cells can form a mass called a tumor. Chemotherapy works by killing the cancer cells, stopping them from spreading, or slowing their growth.

Chemotherapy is used to:

  • Treat cancer by curing the cancer, lessening the chance it will return, or stopping or slowing its growth.
  • Ease cancer symptoms by shrinking tumors that are causing pain and other problems.

Chemotherapy does not just destroy cancer cells. It can also harm some healthy cells, which causes side effects.

You may have a lot of side effects, some side effects, or none at all. It depends on the type and amount of chemotherapy you get and how your body reacts.

Some common side effects are:

  • Mouth sores
  • Fatigue
  • Nausea and vomiting
  • Pain
  • Hair loss

There are ways to prevent or control some side effects. Talk with your health care provider about how to manage them. Healthy cells usually recover after chemotherapy is over, so most side effects go away over time.

You may get chemotherapy in a hospital, at home, at your provider's office, or a medical clinic. You might be given the medicines by mouth, in a shot, as a cream, through a catheter (a thin tube), or intravenously (by IV).

Your treatment plan will depend on the type of cancer you have, which chemotherapy medicines are used, the treatment goals, and how your body responds to the medicines.

Chemotherapy may be given alone or with other treatments. You may get treatment every day, every week, or every month. You may have breaks between treatments so that your body has a chance to build new healthy cells.

It sits within Cancers and Drug Therapy.

The lead U.S. institute for this subject is the National Cancer Institute.

When to speak to someone. Reading about a topic cannot tell you whether it applies to you. Speak to a doctor or pharmacist if symptoms are severe, sudden, getting worse, or simply not going away — and seek emergency care immediately for chest pain, breathing difficulty, sudden weakness or confusion, or a serious allergic reaction.

Research on Cancer Chemotherapy

16,512 studies areregistered for this condition on ClinicalTrials.gov, the U.S. National Library of Medicine's public registry. A selection is below — the links go straight to the registry entry, not to a summary of ours.

What a registered study does and does not mean. Registration means a study exists and has been declared publicly. It says nothing about whether the treatment being tested works, is safe, or is available to you. Many studies find no benefit — that is what research is for. Never seek out an experimental treatment on the strength of a registry entry alone.

Research currently under way

Research already completed

Study data from ClinicalTrials.gov, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved 2026-07-30. Registry entries are supplied by study sponsors and investigators; ClinicalTrials.gov does not verify their scientific validity. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH.

Where to read more

Rather than paraphrase, we point you to the primary sources. Every link below is to a government health agency, a national institute or a recognised medical body — grouped by what you are trying to find out.

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Clinical Trials

Medical subject headings

Clinicians and researchers index this subject under Antineoplastic Agents, Neoplasms. These are the terms to use when searching medical literature.

This page is built from the MedlinePlus health topic record for Cancer Chemotherapy, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), National Institutes of Health. Information is from MedlinePlus.gov. PocketsInfo is not affiliated with, and is not endorsed by, the NLM or the NIH. Retrieved 30 July 2026.