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Adjuvant Chemotherapy

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine

  • 23 Accesses

Definition

Antineoplastic medication given following the primary cancer treatment, usually surgery or radiation, with the goal to improve relapse-free survival.

Description

Paul Ehrlich, a famous German chemist, was the first to coin the term “chemotherapy” or the use of chemicals to treat disease in the early 1900s (DeVita and Chu 2008). While known for his work on drugs to treat infectious disease, he also worked with anticancer agents. However, his work and the work of others that followed him, usually with single agents, were fraught with challenges (DeVita and Chu). The idea that cancers could be cured with chemotherapy first became widely accepted around 1970 with successes in both childhood leukemia and Hodgkin’s lymphoma using multi-agent regimens (DeVita and Chu; Frei 1985). Prior to this time, surgery and radiation were the mainstay for solid tumor treatment. However, even for the most aggressive surgical or radiotherapy regimens, cure rates did not exceed 33% (DeVita and...

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References and Readings

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Head and Neck Surgery, Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Miami, FL, USA

    Elizabeth J. Franzmann

Authors
  1. Elizabeth J. Franzmann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elizabeth J. Franzmann .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Miami School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA

    Marc Gellman

Section Editor information

  1. Departments of Medical Social Sciences, Psychology and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Frank J. Penedo

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Franzmann, E.J. (2020). Adjuvant Chemotherapy. In: Gellman, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_148-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6439-6_148-2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6439-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6439-6

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