Table of ContentsIntroductionAssessmentSurgeryIntroductionChemotherapy uses cytotoxic drugs to target cancer cells by killing them or preventing their growth and division (Macmillan, 2015). This means that chemotherapy is used ideally to stop the growth of cancer cells, but if this is not possible, to slow the growth and reduce the size of cancer cells. This information might suggest that chemotherapy is only suitable for early stages of non-small cell lung cancer (hereinafter called NSCLC), but chemotherapy is also used as palliative treatment. If the cancer reaches an advanced stage, chemotherapy may be used to shrink a painful tumor, which would improve the patient's quality of life (American Cancer Society, 2016). In these situations, it is difficult to determine the effectiveness of chemotherapy because the goal of treatment is now different. The way treatment is given changes depending on what stage the patient's NSCLC is. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get the original essayAssessmentChemotherapy is a systematic treatment, meaning it affects the entire body (What is chemotherapy (c2016) The implication of this is that during the treatment process will not only destroy and stop the growth of cancer cells, but it will also affect normal, healthy body cells and nerve cells, and this consequence is. inevitable Doctors and patients must therefore decide whether chemotherapy is an interesting treatment option, because in particularly weak or unhealthy patients, the damage to their cells will only worsen their condition and. in these cases, the harms may outweigh the benefits for NSCLC patients. However, this is only the case if the chemotherapy is taken orally or by injection. Regional chemotherapy results in more targeted treatment that only affects cancer cells in the area, while systematic chemotherapy that enters the bloodstream and affects both healthy and cancerous cells. The effects should therefore be less serious and therefore less harmful to the patient. In stage IV, the most advanced stage of NSCLC, cancer cells have spread to other parts of the body, such as the brain, and are moving away from a tumor and therefore cannot be easily located on scans. Since chemotherapy is mainly used in isolation for patients with stage iii or iv NSCLC, survival to stage iii is extremely unlikely with a probability of 6%, and once the cancer reaches stage iv , the majority of patients do not survive more than 2 years later. diagnosis (Cancer Research UK, 2017). In these cases, chemotherapy is used to increase the patient's quality of life. Routine chemotherapy is an effective treatment in this case because it can travel through the bloodstream and affect cancer cells that are too small or not near a tumor and eliminate cancer cells that scanners cannot detect . Chemotherapy is often prescribed for stage IV. NSCLC (quote) because although at this stage NSCLC cannot be cured, the goal is to increase the patient's quality of life. It is normally called combined chemotherapy because a combination of drugs is used. Cisplatin and carboplatin are most commonly used in combination with a second medication. However, the use of these.