The doctor will help you decide which is the best treatment option for you and inform you of the risks and benefits of these. Please use the links on the left to find out more about these and see our Patient Information Leaflets.
Chemotherapy...
...is a type of cancer treatment that involves giving drugs that have an anti-cancer effect, often in combination with other drugs as a chemotherapy regimen. The drugs may be given by mouth or injection. Traditional chemotherapy drugs (cytotoxic drugs) work by killing cancer cells but can also kill healthy cells which may cause side effects. Modern anti-cancer drugs usually have a more targeted effect on cancer cells and such targeted therapies or novel agents are increasingly used to treat haematological cancers. They tend to have fewer side effects and are often more effective than cytotoxic drugs.
Radiotherapy...
...is a treatment that uses strong X-rays (radiation) to kill cancer cells. It is often given following a course of chemotherapy in patients with haematological cancer or alone to control local effects of cancer.
Stem Cell transplantation...
…is a treatment that allows very big doses of chemotherapy to be given to treat cancer, usually multiple myeloma or lymphoma, where standard doses are only partly effective. High dose chemotherapy will usually destroy healthy bone marrow cells also so bone marrow stem cells (‘parent cells’) are given by infusion into the vein to allow the bone marrow to regrow. The stem cells can be your own (autologous transplant) or those from s stem cell donor (allogeneic transplant). This treatment is given in hospital over four weeks.
Active Monitoring...
... Is used instead of chemotherapy or radiotherapy for some haematological cancers e.g chronic leukaemia, low grade lymphoma, where the disease is not making the patient unwell and there is not advantage to early treatment. It is often known as ‘watchful waiting’ and patients often can remain very well and free of symptoms for many years with this approach.