Chemotherapy drugs interfere with the cancer cells' ability to grow or multiply. Different groups of drugs act on cells in different ways. Identification of the type of disease is important because certain chemotherapies work best for certain diseases. For example, a patient treated for acute myelogenous leukemia is treated with different agents than one treated with Hodgkin's disease. Even patients diagnosed with the same disease may be treated with different agents, depending on what is known to be most effective for the particular circumstances.
Chemotherapy can damage normal cells as well as cancer cells.
Those normal cells most effected are ones which divide rapidly. These side effects will be discussed in greater detail later. Chemotherapy can be given in different ways. The intravenous route or IV is a very common way of giving medicine directly into a vein. A small plastic needle is inserted into one of the veins in the lower arm.