Chemotherapy For Ovarian Cancer

by Althaf Ahmed


Ovarian cancer is a disease that afflicts up to 25,000 women in America every year. This disease begins with tumors in the ovaries, but the disease spreads as the tumors eventually attack other parts of the body. Some women have their ovaries removed when the disease is caught at an early stage. However, at a certain point in the disease's progression, surgery becomes futile, and the patient's best hope becomes chemotherapy.

The problem with chemotherapy is that it is extremely uncomfortable, even painful, and many women are discouraged by the overall survival rates of ovarian cancer victims. Still, for others, anything is worth trying for that fighting chance to live.

Before you decide whether or not chemotherapy is for you, it's best to know the facts:

Ovarian cancer chemotherapy uses powerful chemicals to kill the cancerous cells in your body. These chemicals enter your body sometimes through drugs taken orally, but more often they are directly pumped into the blood stream using an IV needle and a tube.

Chemotherapy is uncomfortable. It usually makes you feel much worse before you start to feel better. Patients undergoing chemotherapy often feel nauseous. They usually lose their hair.

These effects happen because the chemicals killing the cancer cells are also, at the same time, killing healthy cells. The expectation is that the cancer cells will be eradicated before the healthy cells are. This is why it is very important for chemotherapy patients to take care of their bodies and keep their healthy cells fit to stay in the lead.

But after the chemicals do their job, then you start feeling better. In fact, even in cases where chemotherapy is unable to treat the cancer many doctors still prescribe chemotherapy because even in situations where not all the cancer cells are killed, chemotherapy destroys enough of them to still give the patient relief from some of the cancer's symptoms.

There is another important thing you need to know about ovarian cancer chemotherapy: no matter what happens to you, when you subject yourself to it you are giving other people a better chance of fighting the disease. Every ovarian cancer chemotherapy session gives the medical community a better understanding of how to best treat ovarian cancer. New facts that could be discovered during your treatment may one day help your daughter, your granddaughter, and many other women that come after you - whether or not the chemotherapy helps you yourself.