Can cervical cancer be treated with chemotherapy?

  Cervical cancer is the most common type of gynecologic malignancy and can be life-threatening if not treated aggressively. Chemotherapy is not a commonly used treatment for cervical cancer, but there are some patients who must receive chemotherapy due to special reasons. So far cervical cancer is not sensitive to most anti-cancer drugs, the efficiency of chemotherapy does not exceed 15%, and advanced patients can be treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Chemotherapy can be administered intravenously or locally with 5-fluorouracil and adriamycin.  Chemotherapy is a systemic treatment and is indicated for the treatment of advanced cases. Previously, it was considered that chemotherapy was not effective enough for cervical cancer, with low remission rate and short remission period. For advanced stage patients, it can only serve to relieve pain and prolong life. In recent years, with the continuous introduction of new anti-cancer drugs, gradual improvement of drug delivery routes, combined application of multiple drugs, etc., chemotherapy has become an effective adjuvant therapy in the treatment of cervical cancer, which can be used for both advanced cases or combined with surgery and radiotherapy, as well as for the treatment of recurrent cancer. Chemical drugs can act directly on the tumor, and some of them can also enhance the biological effect of radiotherapy.  1. Combination therapy Combination therapy is generally based on the mechanism of action of drugs, the point of action and the toxic reaction of drugs to select more than 2 drugs for treatment. There are many combination chemotherapy programs for cervical cancer, among which cisplatin and bleomycin are the main ones, and the use of chemotherapy is another way. The efficacy of the case is better. Commonly used regimens such as cisplatin + bleomycin + vincristine, cisplatin + bleomycin + adriamycin. Adriamycin-based combination regimens include Adriamycin + methotrexate.  2.Monotherapy In the past, chemotherapy for cervical cancer mostly used monotherapy, commonly used drugs such as azelaic acid, bleomycin, mitomycin and 5-FU. In recent years, it is found that the efficacy of cisplatin in treating cervical cancer is better than other drugs.  3.Arterial cannulation regional chemotherapy Generally, the route of administration of chemotherapy for cervical cancer is systemic intravenous drug, but arterial cannulation regional chemotherapy is a chemotherapy method developed in recent years, in which chemotherapy drugs are injected through the inferior abdominal wall artery to the level of internal iliac artery to the level of common iliac artery. The commonly used drugs are 5-FU, aminoglutethimide, bleomycin, cisplatin, adriamycin, and so on. Generally, aminoglutethimide is preferred.  4.Integrated treatment of chemotherapy and radiotherapy The use of chemotherapy combined with radiotherapy may improve the treatment effect of advanced cervical cancer. The application methods can be chemotherapy before radiotherapy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy at the same time, chemotherapy after radiotherapy, etc.  5.Integrated treatment of chemotherapy and surgery The applied methods are preoperative chemotherapy and postoperative chemotherapy.