How Chemotherapy Is Given

You may receive chemotherapy in one of several different settings. Those include:

  • as an inpatient in the hospital
  • in the outpatient section of the hospital
  • at your doctor’s office
  • at a clinic

You may take it in one of several different ways:

  • Orally. The drug can be taken as a pill, capsule, or liquid you swallow.
  • Intravenously (IV). The drug may be put directly into your vein.
  • As an injection. You may receive a shot in a muscle or in the fatty part under the skin of your arm, leg, or stomach.
  • Intraperitoneally (IP). The drug can be put directly into the abdomen or peritoneal cavity. This is the area of your body that contains the intestines, liver, stomach, and ovaries.
  • Topically. The drug may be applied as a cream and rubbed into your skin.
  • Intra-Arterially (IA). The drug can be put directly into the artery that is feeding the cancer.

Your treatment will be given in what is known as cycles. You will have a scheduled time to receive chemotherapy. That will be followed by a period when you rest from it. Cycles can last one or more days. Usually, chemotherapy is given every three or four weeks. Each course of chemotherapy is different. But generally, it consists of four to six cycles.

The length of time a chemotherapy treatment takes varies. It can be short, or it can take hours. It depends on the chemotherapy drugs you receive. Your doctor and chemotherapy nurse will talk with you about the drugs scheduled for your treatments.

Combining chemotherapy drugs can improve your outcome. Different drugs act differently during different phases of tumor cell growth. Chemotherapy drug combinations can often kill more cancer cells.

Before you receive each treatment, you’ll have blood tests. These will be used to determine if your body has recovered from the previous chemotherapy cycles. If you have not completely recovered your doses may be adjusted or your treatment delayed.

Your nurse will also weigh you before your treatment. The dosage needs to be calculated for your individual height and weight. At each treatment, you should tell your nurse if your weight has changed.