Chemo- means chemicals, for most types of cancer chemotherapy will consist of a number of different drugs, this is known as combination chemotherapy. Cytotoxic - cytotoxic drugs kill or damage cells. The normal cells of the body grow and die in a controlled way, but cancer cells keep growing and multiplying. Chemotherapy destroys cancer cells by stopping them from growing or multiplying at one or more points during the life cycle of the cell. Central line - a thin plastic line into a vein in the chest used for the delivery of chemotherapy e.g. Hickman line.
Drug resistance is where tumour cells become resistant to chemotherapy.
Thus by selection it is the most resistant cells survive and divide, they may be resistant to a particular drug, a class of drugs, or all drugs. The bone marrow is destroyed by high dose chemotherapy and possibly radiotherapy which has been given to kill malignant cells in the body. Healthy matching marrow is then transplanted into the patient. Allogeneic BMT Healthy marrow is taken from a matched donor and used to replace the patients bone marrow which has been destroyed by high dose chemotherapy. The donor may be a relative, if the patient has a twin this may be the best match, otherwise a brother, sister, or another unrelated person may donate marrow.