Very good article to help explain common terms used in medicine. Dealing with cancer in a pet is troubling enough (having gone through it with my own dog), not to mention getting bogged down with new words and terms. I hope everyone will find this beneficial.
Chemotherapy and radiation therapy are confusing topics. When complicated terminology is combined with the anxiety associated with a diagnosis of cancer, it’s easy to understand how things become blurry. Further complicating things are those veterinarians who cross specialties. How can an owner keep be expected to keep it all straight?
Chemotherapy is defined as the use of chemical substances to treat disease. Conventionally, we think of chemotherapy in relation to treating cancer. Chemotherapy can be administered intravenously (through a vein), topically (on the skin), subcutaneously (under the skin), intramuscularly (into a muscle), orally, intratumorally (injected directly into a tumor), or intracavitary (given directly into a body cavity.)
Adjuvant chemotherapy is prescribed after a tumor is removed and we are hoping to treat any microscopic residual cancer cells that may have spread from the tumor prior to surgery. An example of adjuvant chemotherapy is treating a dog with osteosarcoma with a…
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