Radiation given to the brain to keep the cancer cells from growing there is called cranial irradiation. Radiation therapy may be used alone or in addition to chemotherapy. Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. Chemotherapy may be taken by pill, or it may be put into the body by a needle in a vein or muscle. Chemotherapy is called a systemic treatment because the drugs enter the bloodstream, travel through the body, and can kill cancer cells throughout the body.
Biological treatment tries to help the body to fight cancer or infections.
It uses materials made by the body or made in a laboratory to boost, direct, or restore the body's natural defenses against disease. Bone marrow transplantation and peripheral blood stem cell transplantation are also being tested in clinical trials for certain patients. Bone marrow transplantation is a type of treatment that uses very high doses of chemotherapy to kill resistant lymphoma cells in the body. The high doses of chemotherapy also destroy most of the bone marrow in the body. To replace the bone marrow, marrow is taken from the bones before treatment and treated with drugs or other substances to kill any cancer cells.