6 Myths About Chemotherapy

Scott Tagawa, M.D.

Chemotherapy often gets a bad rap due to the perception that the side effects of this cancer treatment are severe. What many people don’t know is chemotherapy refers to an umbrella category for different medications that work in a similar way. Just as different cancers are unique, chemotherapies are also unique and use different formula compounds. They also have brand and generic names.

I want to dispel some of the things I hear from patients about chemotherapy. Here are 6 of the most common chemo myths and misconceptions:

1. It doesn’t work. False! While new cancer treatments are continuously being researched and developed, chemo remains the treatment gold standard for many types of cancers – including testicular cancer and metastatic prostate and bladder cancers – because it works. Through rigorous research, chemo has been shown to improve survival and increase the cure rates for many cancers, especially genitourinary (GU) cancers. Testicular cancer now has an approximately 99% cure rate which was not possible before chemotherapy. Additionally, chemotherapy increases the cure rates for bladder cancer and was more recently shown to have one of the most significant increases in survival compared to any other prior therapy for prostate cancer. Unfortunately, chemo doesn’t always work on every single type of cancer. In addition to the development of novel therapies, work is ongoing to help us select patients that will have more or less benefit from chemotherapy.
2. It has significant side effects. This is partially true depending on what type of chemo you’re taking and what you perceive to be a negative side effect. Some chemotherapies cause hair loss as they attack the cancer cells, and this is one of the most “visible” side effects of treatment. What many people don’t realize, however, is that chemo can make patients feel better almost immediately because of its ability to control the cancer. For example, the first chemotherapy approved for prostate cancer (mitoxantrone) was approved because it made men feel better. The next generation chemotherapy (docetaxel) made men feel even better when compared to mitoxantrone. Moreover, the impact chemo has on quality of life is often short-term. Longer term, patients who undergo chemo report feeling better. A recently presented study showed that while overall quality of life was worse at an early time point during chemotherapy, men with metastatic prostate cancer had a superior quality of life a year later. This is likely due to the combination of better long-term cancer control and the fact that most chemo-related side effects are temporary. Additionally, while new treatment options, including immunotherapies, hold promise for many types of cancers, these do not work for everyone and are not without side effects either.
3. It isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. There are over 200 types of chemotherapies, each differing in function and specific use. For example, platinum-based chemotherapies are mainly used for bladder cancers while taxanes are used for prostate cancer.
4. It isn’t a targeted treatment. Chemo is targeted in certain ways because it acts on specific receptors. For example, taxanes, which are one type of chemotherapy agent, have the ability to stop cells from growing by targeting structures inside the cell that help it multiply. In prostate cancer specifically, taxanes kill cancer cells by blocking the movement of specific receptors that promote cancer growth. At Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian, we are able to analyze the tumor for genomic mutations that can tell us whether you are more or less likely to respond to this type of treatment.
5. It is painful. When you are receiving cycles of chemotherapy, it should not hurt. Some patients receive chemo through an IV (intravenously), while other chemos are given as oral medications that you can take at home. Most genitourinary cancer patients undergo treatment on an outpatient basis. If you experience discomfort, burning, or coolness speak to your nurse or another member of your cancer healthcare team.
6. Chemo suppresses the immune system. I commonly hear this from patients as a reason to avoid chemo. While there is an infection risk associated with chemotherapy if blood counts are low, current data indicates that combining chemo with immunotherapy (either together or sequentially with one followed by the other) may be better than immunotherapy alone.

Oncologists and researchers are always looking for the best treatment options to bring cures to the greatest number of cancer patients. For many patients, chemo remains the best option at controlling the cancer growth and ultimately curing the cancer. For some patients, newer approaches such as immunotherapy or other biologic agents are more tailored to fighting their disease. At Weill Cornell Medicine, we continue to work on identifying which chemotherapy is best for the right tumor in the right patient at the right time, as well as developing strategies to deliver chemotherapy preferentially to tumors (sparing normal organs), and continuing to develop new immunotherapies and biologic-based approaches to treatment.