How does chemotherapy work?
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You kill every cell that tries to divide in your body. Because cancer cells want to divide more often they die slightly fastest than the rest of you. It’s a shit desease…
Different meds work different ways. Traditional chemo does work by interfering with cell division. Hence the side effects on other cells that grow rapidly (white blood cells, hair, GI tract).
Some newer meds interfere with cancer’s signal to the body to supply it with blood (yes, it’s an evil disease that tricks our own body to grow blood vessels to feed it)
Other chemo targets certain proteins that are particular to the cancer cells.
Some cancers, like breast cancer, sometimes gets sped up by hormones. So there are some meds to block that.
Friend of mine that went through chemo told me this: It’s basically targeted poison: Enough to kill the cancer, not quite enough to kill you.
I tried reading up on my maintenance chemo (lenalidomide) and Wikipedia says “How it works is not entirely clear as of 2019.”
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