We might think that all anticancer treatment is to be always administer via needles, cannula and drip sets. However there are anticancer medicines which can be given via mouth. This can be simply called as oral anticancer treatment.
It is important to know that oral anticancer treatment could be either oral chemotherapy or oral targeted therapy. Oral chemotherapy has been in usage for long time. This is being given in many types of cancers including breast cancer, ovarian cancer, blood cancers etc. Oral targeted therapy in comparison is a new modality of treatment, where these drugs act by inhibiting specific pathways at molecular level responsible for cancer propagation. Chemotherapy is non- specific in cell killing whereas targeted drugs are very specific in cancer killing.
Methotrexate, capecitabine, cyclophosphamide, etoposide are few of the commonly used oral chemotherapy medications. They are potent and efficacious and one should not think that because they are oral- they are weaker than intravenous chemotherapy. Also, their side effect profile is similar to their injection counterparts.