Generally, there are three methods by which cancer can be treated. Surgery is a good choice for treatment if the cancer is localized to a single area and the veterinarian has the opportunity to completely remove the cancer. Likewise, another cancer may have occurred originally in the skin, but has now spread to several different areas of the lungs. Surgery would not provide a cure for this dog. Chemotherapy is a second choice for treatment of cancer.
Chemotherapeutic agents are toxic chemicals that are used to kill the cancer cells.
However, since all cells in the body are undergoing the exact same living processes, all chemotherapeutic agents kill normal cells as well as cancer cells. The drugs and the dose of those drugs that are used for chemotherapy are a delicate balance between killing the cancer cells and killing the normal cells of the body. Radiation is the third mode of cancer therapy. Radiation has the potential to kill any cell in the body. Again, the idea of radiation therapy for cancer is to localize the destructive beam to the cancer, sparing the normal cells.