The hospital has strict protocols and procedures in place for the administration of drugs to patients. Special Reports Factfile Chemotherapy Chemotherapy is a drug treatment which doctors use to try to destroy and stop the spread of cancer cells. A combination of a number of different, powerful drugs is normally used. The drugs are toxic because they have to kill the cells and side effects are common as a result. Healthy cells may be wiped out along with the cancer although different combinations are being developed and some types of modern chemotherapy cause only minor problems.
Most people think that leukaemia is a form of cancer of the blood.
This is not strictly correct, leukaemia is really a cancer of the bone marrow. The bone marrow is found in the marrow cavities of the long bones, ribcage and pelvis and contains many different types of cells which actually produce all the various types of blood cells. The bone marrow is the blood making factory of the body producing hundreds of millions of red and white blood cells each and every day of our lives. If one of these bone marrow cells becomes cancerous it starts to grow and divide aggressively out of all control and pushes out all the normal blood making cells from the bone marrow. Consequently normal blood production ceases and the bone marrow and blood begin to fill up with cancerous leukaemia cells which serve no useful function.