The drugs may be taken orally, intravenously, or by simple injection. Many chemotherapy drugs are toxins. As a result, patients may experience side effects such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, chills, rash, and allergic type reactions. The severity of these effects depends on drug dosage, the specific drug used, the patient, course of treatment, and other factors. These effects may last for a few hours to a few days.
Hormone therapy is a form of chemotherapy except that natural and synthetic hormones are used.
There are few side effects from this type of therapy. Historically, kidney cancer has proven to be resistant to many chemotherapy agents. Response rates for traditional chemotherapy used for kidney cancer are often below 10 percent. For this reason, standard chemotherapy is not usually used. However, many new drugs and chemotherapy techniques are being tested now such as circadian timing.