Palliative cancer treatments are not intended to cure cancer. They are meant to provide comfort and prolong life once the cancer has been deemed incurable. Systemic chemotherapy is a common palliative therapy and serves many purposes.

What is Palliative Care

Once a cancer has spread throughout the body, a cure is unlikely. Palliative cancer treatments aim to ease symptoms of a progressing cancer and possibly prolong life.

Palliative Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy drugs are systemic--meaning they move through the entire body. This makes them a good treatment for advanced, incurable cancers. These treatments alleviate symptoms by shrinking tumors and controlling cancer growth anywhere it might be.

Goals

Palliative systemic chemotherapy can ease pain and other symptoms, enhance emotional well-being and improve overall quality of life. Some treatments might shrink the tumors while others keep the cancer stable.

Monitoring Response

Doctors typically give two rounds of palliative chemotherapy to determine effectiveness, according to GetPalliativeCare.org, a website authored by doctors specializing in palliative care. A round typically lasts three to four weeks. If your cancer responds, you will continue to receive this therapy until it stops working or if and when side effects become intolerable.

Effectiveness

When effective, palliative chemotherapy usually provides benefit for 3 to 12 months, according to GetPalliativeCare.org.

Source:

GetPalliativeCare.Org

Cancer Research UK

FamilyDoctor.Org