IndexIntroductionEvaluationSurgeryIntroductionChemotherapy uses cytotoxic drugs to target tumor cells, killing them or preventing their growth and division (Macmillan, 2015). This means that chemotherapy is ideally used to stop the growth of cancer cells, but if this is not possible to slow the growth and shrink the cancer cells. This information may suggest that chemotherapy is only suitable for the early stages of non-small cell lung cancer (hereinafter referred to as NSCLC), however chemotherapy is also used as a palliative treatment. If the cancer reaches an advanced stage, chemotherapy can be used to reduce the size of a painful tumor, thereby improving 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 delivered changes depending on what stage the NSCLC patient is at. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Evaluation Chemotherapy is a systematic treatment, meaning that it affects the entire body (What is chemotherapy? (c2016). The implication of this is that during the The treatment process will not only destroy and stop the growth of tumor cells, but will also affect normal, healthy cells of the body and nerve cells, and this consequence is inevitable Doctors and patients must therefore decide whether chemotherapy is an effective therapy a useful treatment option since in particularly weak patients or unhealthy the damage to their cells will only make their condition worse and in these cases the disadvantages may outweigh the advantages for NSCLC patients. However, this is only the case if chemotherapy is taken orally or by injection. Regional chemotherapy results in a more targeted treatment that affects only the cancer cells in the area, while systematic chemotherapy that enters the bloodstream and affects healthy and cancer cells. Therefore, the effects should be less severe and, consequently, 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 away from the tumor and therefore cannot be easily spotted on scans. Since chemotherapy is mainly used in isolation for patients with stage iii or iv NSCLC, since at stage iii survival is extremely unlikely with a probability of 6%, and once the cancer reaches stage iv, most patients do not survive for more than 2 years after diagnosis (Cancer Research UK, 2017). In these cases, chemotherapy is used to improve the patient's quality of life. Systematic chemotherapy is an effective treatment in this case as it can travel through the bloodstream and target cancer cells that are too small or not near the tumor and eliminate cancer cells that scans fail to detect. Chemotherapy is often prescribed for Stage IV NSCLC (citation) because although NSCLC cannot be cured at this stage, the goal is to increase the patient's quality of life. It is usually called combination chemotherapy because a combination of drugs is used. Cisplatin and carboplatin are the most common to use in combination with a second drug, however the use of these drugs introduces many side effects. Cisplatin and carboplatin increase the risk of the patient getting an infection (Cancer Research UK,.