The effectiveness of radiation therapy varies depending on the size of the tumor, the type of cancer it is, and where the tumor is located. Radiation therapy is ideally given every day for a period of three to four weeks, and each treatment requires a brief general anesthesia. The side effects of this treatment vary depending on what part of the body is treated. A biopsy is a method of obtaining a portion of a tumor for a pathologist to evaluate so that a diagnosis can be made. There are several different ways of performing biopsies including techniques that require special needles, and some that require surgery.
Chemotherapy simply means treating disease with medication.
The term is most commonly used to refer to treating cancer with medication. Most chemotherapy drugs are given directly into a vein, but others are given orally or by injection into a muscle. Chemotherapy alone is effective against some forms of cancer such as lymphoma, but is often used in combination with other treatments such as surgery. The side effects seen in veterinary chemotherapy, although not entirely absent, are usually significantly less severe than those seen in human medicine because lower dosages of medication are often used. The side effects vary for each drug and for each dosage used.