Cancer Medicines

All cancer medicines travel through your bloodstream and are carried throughout your body to the cancer cells. There are many different types of cancer medicines. Some of the most common are chemotherapy, hormone therapy and immunotherapy.

Chemotherapy is one type of systemic therapy that uses medications to destroy cancer cells or stop them from growing. Many kinds of medications can be used in chemotherapy. Your treatment may involve using one medication or a combination of different medications. 

Hormone therapy a type of systemic therapy, can be used to fight certain types of cancer (e.g. breast cancer, prostate cancer) which depend on hormones to grow. Hormones are proteins that are produced normally by our bodies. They guide and control many functions of the body such as growth and digestion.

Immunotherapy sometimes uses your own body's immune system to fight cancer cells by boosting your body's built-in natural defense system. Another type of immunotherapy involves giving antibodies that act against the cancer cells (antibody therapy).