How chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and radiotherapy actually work — what each does and does not do.
A calm, thorough guide to why chemotherapy causes side effects, how each common one is prevented or managed today, and the red-flag symptoms that mean you should call your team straight away.
Checkpoint-inhibitor immunotherapy, including drugs like Keytruda, works by taking the brakes off your own immune system so it can attack cancer. Here is how it works, who tends to benefit, the biomarkers involved, and the distinctive immune-related side effects to watch for.
Radiation therapy uses precisely aimed high-energy beams to damage the DNA of cancer cells in one part of the body. Here is how it works, what the day-to-day experience is really like, and how its side effects — usually local to the treated area — are managed.
Targeted therapy uses molecular testing to match a drug to the specific fault driving your cancer. Here I explain how these treatments work, why biomarker testing comes first, how the side effects differ from chemotherapy, and why resistance can develop over time.
CAR T-cell therapy re-engineers a patient’s own immune cells to hunt their cancer. Here is how it works, which cancers it can treat in 2026, and what the serious side effects — CRS and ICANS — really mean.