Chemotherapy is most often used to treat cancer, but it’s also used to treat bone marrow diseases and immune system disorders.
Cancer
Chemotherapy drugs are used to treat many types of cancer. The specific treatment depends on many factors, including the cancer type, whether it has spread, and your health.
Chemotherapy may be used before surgery to shrink a tumor (called neoadjuvant chemotherapy) or after surgery to kill any cancer cells that may be remaining (called adjuvant chemotherapy). Chemotherapy is also used when cancer returns, when it has spread to other areas of the body, or in combination with other therapies to help make them more effective.
Bone Marrow Diseases
Bone marrow is the soft tissue inside your bones. It makes blood cells. Chemotherapy may be used for bone marrow diseases to destroy cancerous or abnormal cells before a stem cell transplant.
Cancers that affect the bone marrow include leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma. Noncancerous conditions include aplastic anemia, a rare condition in which the bone marrow stops producing enough blood cells, and severe combined immunodeficiency, a group of rare genetic disorders that affect the development and function of immune cells.
Autoimmune Diseases
Chemotherapy drugs are sometimes used to help treat certain autoimmune diseases, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. With autoimmune disorders, the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks healthy cells in the body. Chemotherapy prevents cells from multiplying, thereby reducing the harm done by the immune cells.
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