Palliative Chemotherapy Review Articles

This idea of palliative chemotherapy is relatively new. It’s only in recent years that that alleviation of symptoms has become an important component of clinical trials for cancer research. Chemotherapy is a general term for the use of a chemical agent to stop cancer cells from growing. It can be administered in a variety of ways with the most common being: Orally-pills taken by mouth, Intravenously–infused through a vein, Topically– applied to the skin. Chemotherapy usually refers to chemical agents such as alkylating agents, anti-metabolites, and anti-tumor antibiotics. These chemicals are designed to kill cancer cells and prevent them from growing but they aren’t biased. They attack healthy cells as well, causing side effects such as nausea, hair loss, and infections. While not technically considered chemotherapy, other drugs may be used palliatively to shrink tumor size and slow cancer growth. They include hormone therapy and immunotherapy. Hormone therapy is the use of hormones to slow cancer growth, such as estrogen to slow cervical cancer, tamoxifen to slow breast cancer, and anti-androgens for prostate cancers. Immunotherapy is designed to stimulate the immune system to better recognize and attack cancer cells. For palliative purposes, most oncologists prefer to try the treatment with the least risk of side effects that would negatively impact quality of life. This means that hormone therapy may be tried before toxic chemotherapies. Review articles are the summary of current state of understanding on a particular research topic. They analyze or discuss research previously published by scientist and academicians rather than reporting novel research results. Review article comes in the form of systematic reviews and literature reviews and are a form of secondary literature. Systematic reviews determine an objective list of criteria, and find all previously published original research papers that meet the criteria. They then compare the results presented in these papers. Literature reviews, by contrast, provide a summary of what the authors believe are the best and most relevant prior publications. The concept of "review article" is separate from the concept of peer-reviewed literature. It is possible for a review to be peer-reviewed, and it is possible for a review to be non-peer-reviewed.

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Last date updated on April, 2024