Chemotherapy for cancer

Chemotherapy is used to treat many types of cancer. Most often, chemotherapy is used with other cancer treatments. The types of treatment that you receive depend on the type of cancer you have, if it has spread and where, and if you have other health problems. 

This page explores the benefits and dangers of chemotherapy as a treatment for cancer.

Get the latest on chemotherapy from the National Cancer Institute

Quick Summary.
Research shows that Chemotherapy:

• is highly effective in extending survival in a few rare cancers.
• has a small survival benefit in a few common cancers.
• shows little or no benefit in most cancers.
• can make some cancers worse.
• “side-effects” can be severe or fatal in some cases.
• “side-effects” can be mitigated to some degree by the use of Complementary therapies.

Why Chemo fails for most cancers

1. Metastasis cause most cancer deaths
2. Most metastases are caused by Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs).
3. Cancer Stem Cells are resistant to Chemotherapy

Metastasis cause most cancer deaths
Metastasis is the general term used to describe the spread of cancer cells from the primary tumor to surrounding tissues and to distant organs and is the primary cause of cancer morbidity and mortality

It is estimated that metastasis is responsible for about 90% of cancer deaths. This estimate has changed little in more than 50 years, says this study.

Most metastases caused by Cancer Stem Cells (CSCs).
CSCs have been shown in numerous cancer models to be involved in tumor development, cell proliferation, and metastatic dissemination, while possessing a capacity for sustained self-renewal. CSCs, which typically represent a small proportion of total cells of a given tumor, also exhibit resistance to chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Indeed, exposure to these treatments may promote “stemness” in nonstem cancer cells, which may explain why successful therapeutic reduction of tumor bulk will often fail to produce clinical improvement, says this 2016 study.

“Many medical oncologists recommend chemotherapy for virtually any tumor, with a hopefulness undiscouraged by almost invariable failure!”

Dr Albert Braverman MD, Professor of Oncology, State University of New York.

Chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival

A 14-year study The contribution of cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adult malignancies published in Clinical Oncology in 2004 explored the contribution of cytotoxic chemotherapy to five year survival in 250 000 adults with solid cancers from Australian and US randomised trials. An important effect was shown on five year survival only in testicular cancer (40%), Hodgkin’s disease (37%), cancer of the cervix (12%), lymphoma (10.5%), and ovarian cancer (8.8%). Together, these represented less than 10% of all cases. In the remaining 90% of patients—including those with the commonest tumours of the lung, prostate, colorectum, and breast—drug therapy increased five year survival by less than 2.5%—an overall survival benefit of around three months.
Study Results:
The overall contribution of curative and adjuvant cytotoxic chemotherapy to 5-year survival in adults was estimated to be 2.3% in Australia and 2.1% in the USA.
Study Conclusion:
As the 5-year relative survival rate for cancer in Australia is now over 60%, it is clear that cytotoxic chemotherapy only makes a minor contribution to cancer survival…

Study Authors: Graeme Morgan, Department of Radiation Oncology, Northern Sydney Cancer Centre, Royal North Shore Hospital, Sydney, NSW; Robyn Ward, Department of Medical Oncology, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, NSW; Michael Barton, Collaboration for Cancer Outcomes Research and Evaluation, Liverpool Health Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia.

Chemotherapy is not as effective as claimed

This study entitled Lessons from a century of cancer chemotherapy, found: “… the results of over a half-century of clinical trials have shown that the therapeutic approach of combined/dose-dense chemotherapy has not been successful in achieving its primary purpose, which is the induction of long-term disease-free survival in the majority of patients with systemic disease”.

Proof that increases in survival is not ‘because of better drugs’

This 2017 study published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) concluded:
This systematic evaluation of oncology approvals by the EMA in 2009-13 shows that most drugs entered the market without evidence of benefit on survival or quality of life.

A study published in 2018 in JAMA Oncology found that colorectal cancer patients who improve their diet and lifestyle survive longer with a 42 per cent reduced risk of death than those who do not make the changes. This is way beyond anything drugs have to offer…and with only positive side effects!

“In the end there is no proof that chemotherapy in the vast majority of cases actually extends life, and this is the great lie about chemotherapy, that somehow there is a correlation between shrinking a tumor and extending the life of a patient.”

Ralph Moss PhD (has written 12 books and three films about cancer)

The Failure of Cancer Treatments

Source: People Against Cancer
The inescapable conclusion is that in the existing paradigm, there is no incentive to cure cancer – only to treat it.
Chemotherapy.
In response to claims by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the excellent effectiveness of chemotherapy treatments, Dr. Dean Burk, serving as head of the Cytochemistry Division of the NCI, addressed a letter to his boss Dr. Rauscher, which stated, “I submit that a program of FDA-approved [chemotherapy] compounds that yield only five-to-ten percent ‘effectiveness’ can scarcely be described as ‘excellent,’ the more so since it represents the total production of a 30-year effort on the part of all of us in the cancer-therapy field. Even that five-to-ten percent effectiveness,” he adds, “is suspect, possibly being more than offset (in the majority of patients who do not benefit from chemotherapy) by shorter survival and lower quality of remaining life occasioned by the (widely acknowledged) great toxicity of nearly all approved chemotherapies, most of which, are capable of causing cancer in their own right.”

The Dangers of Chemotherapy

While chemotherapy is in common use and may be beneficial in some instances, it should be noted that it is extremely toxic and many doctors question it’s efficacy. Here we look at some of the dangers and a few possible ways to reduce the side-effects.

Caution: Chemotherapy kills – study

This study by Public Health England and Cancer Research UK looked at more than 28,364 women with breast cancer and 15,045 patients with lung cancer who underwent chemotherapy in 2014. Of those treated 1,974 died within 30 days. The research was published in The Lancet Oncology in September 2016.

Breast Cancer drugs Paclitaxel and Herceptin can cause fatal lung disease.

On 16 July, 2019, The Worthing Herald reported on the case Cecilia Francis, known as Celia, died at Worthing Hospital from lung disease induced by the chemotherapy drugs paclitaxel and herceptin, which she was given as ‘add-on’ treatment for breast cancer, on October 28 last year.

An inquest into her death, held at Crawley Coroner’s Court on Friday, July 12, heard that the 61-year-old of Furzeholme, Worthing, had not been informed that pnemonitis, an inflammation of the lungs, was a potentially life-threatening side effect of these drugs in the literature from cancer charities that she was given at hospital.

This 2017 study shows that Paclitaxel promotes the spread of cancer cells to the lungs.

One dose of 5-FU chemotherapy can kill you if you have a DPD enzyme deficiency.

5-FU (5-fluorouracil) includes the following brand names:
Adrucil
Carac Tolak
Efudex
Fluoroplex
Xeloda (Capecitabine)

This meta-analysis published in 2019 by The American College of Cardiology, reported that cardiovascular disease symptoms and heart attacks were observed in as little as 12 hours of intravenous infusions of 5-FU. Toxic reactions also include heart failure, seizures, and coma.

Dihydropyrimidine Dehydrogenase (DPD) is the liver enzyme largely responsible for deactivating and detoxifying more than 80% of 5-FU from the body. Without the DPD enzyme, fluorouracil-based drugs (5-FU and capecitabine) continue to poison the body indefinitely, resulting in overwhelming toxicity, collateral damage, and for some, agonizing death.

There is a blood test to check for the DPD enzyme deficiency, but most cancer patients are not given this test, or even told about it, before they are given 5-FU.

There is also an antidote to 5-FU poisoning called Vistoguard (uridine triacetate), but it must be given within 4 days, and it is very expensive.

More studies showing the dangers of chemotherapy
A study published in The Lancet (Sept. 2016) found: Out of 28,364 patients with Breast Cancer who received Systemic Anticancer treatment (chemo), 700 died within 30 days of treatment start date. Out of 15,045 patients with Lung Cancer who received Systemic Anticancer treatment, 1,274 died within 30 days of treatment start date. Some of these patients died of disease progression or from other causes.

Read the full article in Lancet Oncology

This study published in 2017 says chemotherapy “ may increase cancer cell dissemination and induce a more aggressive tumor phenotype with increased metastasis.”

Breast cancer patients initially treated with tamoxifen have a twofold increased risk of uterine corpus cancer, with particularly high risks seen for rare tumors of the mixed mullerian type.

Platinum-based chemotherapy for ovarian cancer increased the risk of leukemia three- to fourfold, and risk rose with increasing cumulative doses to reach eightfold.
Source: Second Cancers – Landmark Studies (The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute.)

This study entitled Lessons from a century of cancer chemotherapy, found:“… the results of over a half-century of clinical trials have shown that the therapeutic approach of combined/dose-dense chemotherapy has not been successful in achieving its primary purpose, which is the induction of long-term disease-free survival in the majority of patients with systemic disease”.

Study finds elevated risk of certain rare blood cancers after chemotherapy for most solid tumors – National Cancer Institute

Press Release issued by the US National Cancer Institute:

Findings from a new study by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) show that patients treated with chemotherapy for most solid tumors during 2000–2014 experienced an increased risk of therapy-related myelodysplastic syndrome/acute myeloid leukemia (tMDS/AML).

The study concluded: We report an increase in the number of patients with elevated risk for developing tMDS/AML [Myelodysplastic Syndrome and Acute Myeloid Leukemia] after cancer chemotherapy in the modern treatment era. … Although the absolute risk of developing tMDS/AML is low, its treatment is often resource intensive and associated with substantial morbidity; overall survival is poor, highlighting its clinical significance.

This study found:
Large-scale, United States population-based data demonstrate excess tMDS/AML [Myelodysplastic Syndrome and Acute Myeloid Leukemia ] risks following chemotherapy for nearly all solid tumor types, consistent with expanded use of known leukemogenic agents in the 21st century. ..Overall survival following tMDS/AML diagnosis was poor (1270 of 1619 patients [78.4%] died; median overall survival, 7 months). For patients treated with chemotherapy at the present time, approximately three-quarters of tMDS/AML cases expected to occur within the next 5 years will be attributable to chemotherapy.

Advanced disease and chemotherapy

This study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), concluded: Although palliative chemotherapy is used to improve QOL [Quality of Life] for patients with end-stage cancer, its use did not improve QOD for patients with moderate or poor performance status and worsened QOD for patients with good performance status. The QOD [Quality of Life near death] in patients with end-stage cancer is not improved, and can be harmed, by chemotherapy use near death, even in patients with good performance status.

This study concluded:
The Quality of Life near Death in patients with end-stage cancer is not improved, and can be harmed by chemotherapy use near death…

Ulrich Abel, PhD, of the University of Heidelberg, is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on chemotherapy.
In the 1990s, he conducted a study on the benefits of chemotherapy. He reviewed several thousand publications and sought the views of oncologists in over 350 clinics before publishing his results. Here’s what he found:
“With few exceptions, there is no good scientific basis for the application of chemotherapy in symptom-free patients with advanced epithelial malignancy”.

In his book Chemotherapy of Advanced Epithelial Cancer, he stated: “There is no evidence for the majority of cancers that treatment with these drugs exerts any positive influence on survival or quality of life in patients with advanced disease”

Speaking in Stuttgart in 1990, he stated:
“The success of most chemotherapies is appalling. There is no scientific evidence for its ability to extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients suffering from the most common organic cancer. Chemotherapy for malignancies too advanced for surgery, which accounts for 80 percent of all cancers, is a scientific wasteland.”

Risk of stroke

This study concluded: although this study does not provide definitive proof of a causative role of chemotherapy in ischemic stroke, a relation is suggested by the short interval between administration of chemotherapy and the occurrence of ischemic stroke. The risk of ischemic stroke after chemotherapy is predicted by the use of cisplatin-based chemotherapy, the first 10 days after chemotherapy, the first cycle of chemotherapy, but not cancer histologic type. The infarct is usually located in the middle cerebral artery and cardiovascular risk factors are not common.

Chemotherapy worsens outcomes in Stage II colon cancer patients.

This study followed 453 stage II colon cancer patients over a two year period following diagnosis. The study authors concluded:
In this study, stage II colon cancer patients who received chemotherapy treatment were more likely to have poor quality of life, recurrence, and all-cause mortality after 24 months compared to those who did not receive chemotherapy.

While chemotherapy is effective for a very small number of cancers (testicular cancer and childhood leukaemia), this 2017 study shows that a review into more than 1,200 published articles found that

• The average life expectancy of childhood cancer survivors is 30 per cent lower than the general population.
• Childhood cancer survivors are up to six times more likely to develop a secondary cancer, compared with the general population.

In general, cancer survivors are also more likely to develop long term conditions, such as heart problems, lung scarring, secondary cancers and frailty. They will also get age-associated illnesses sooner than the general population, the analysis suggests.

The researchers say much of the illness and accelerated ageing is down to harsh treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which damage the body’s ability to fight back from illness and repair itself.

Some cancer drugs were also found to be associated with hearing loss, reduced thyroid gland activity, high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, muscular weakness, arthritis, kidney and liver diseases, chronic constipation, and infertility.

“…in most cases a patient’s survival depends on whether he dies from the side effects of chemotherapy before the chemotherapy kills the cancer, or vice versa”

The Economist

Chemo can cause cancer to return

This study states:
Interestingly, rates of tumor cell repopulation have been shown to accelerate in the intervals between successive courses of treatment, and solid tumors commonly show initial responses followed by rapid regrowth and subsequent resistance to further chemotherapy. Our results indicate that damage responses in benign cells comprising the tumor microenvironment may directly contribute to enhanced tumor growth kinetics.

“Most cancer patients in this country die of chemotherapy. Chemotherapy does not eliminate breast, colon, or lung cancers. This fact has been documented for over a decade, yet doctors still use chemotherapy for these tumors.”

Allen Levin, MD, UCSF — The Healing of Cancer

Dangers of drugs commonly given to cancer patients.

The “side-effects” listed below are only a sample of the full range of “side-effects” observed. Please see individual manufacturers site for further details.

A less toxic alternative?

SEF Chemo: New treatment with no side-effects?

Berkeley Institute International is treating patients with SEF Chemo – a new treatment that is reportedly side-effects free. Here is some info from its website: For decades, doctors and researchers have been trying to figure a way—without success—to deliver chemo agents directly to cancerous cells without harming healthy tissue. Dr. Matsumura, and his team of dedicated scientists at the ALIN Foundation…developed a novel method in their use that produced a powerful new therapy without the dosage-limiting side effects of cancer drugs. While normal cells are protected, cancer drugs can be employed in higher doses to eradicate the dividing cancer cells not protected by the antidote.

This study concluded: In several tumor types, chemotherapy has so far demonstrated an overall unsatisfactory potential to counteract and control metastatic dissemination even when a partial or complete response has been achieved at the primary tumor site.

Where conventional chemotherapy may destroy only 60% of cancer cells in the body, SEF Chemo®, using a side effect-reducing medicament, may destroy 95% of cancer cells…See SEF Chemo page

Low dose chemotherapy can be better than or as efficient as maximum tolerated dose.

Study: In this review, we present evidence that metronomic chemotherapy, based on the frequent administration of low or intermediate doses of chemotherapeutics, can be better than or as efficient as MTD (maximum tolerated dose).

This meta-analysis of 6 Randomized Controlled Trials says:
Interestingly, low-dose chemotherapy achieved the same desired potency as conventional-dose chemotherapy…Moreover, low-dose regimen seems to possess a positive advantage of lower toxicity which would exert a peculiar fascination for most patients. Thus, in routine practice, clinicians should bear the low-dose setting in mind, especially for frail individuals.

Complementary therapies can help reduce “side-effects”

Complementary therapies for cancer are supportive approaches used alongside conventional treatments like chemotherapy to help improve how well your treatment works, reduce treatment-related pain and organ damage, improve quality of life, reduce recurrence risk, and, in some cases, support longer-term survival.

In this 2019 Systematic Review,12 trials reported beneficial aspects of complementary therapies on the overall survival of cancer patients.

 
Explore how to make chemotherapy work better and reduce side effects.

Explore SEF chemo as an alternative to regular chemotherapy

Explore Cancer Treatment Options to support recovery and survival

Download Free eBook:
How to reduce chemo side-effects

Last updated April 2026