Chemotherapy is the most common treatment for most cancers that rapidly grow throughout the body. According to Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, "Chemotherapy is a drug treatment that uses powerful chemicals to kill fast-growing cells in your body" ("Chemotherapy"). Chemotherapy drugs contain high levels of chemicals which can put pressure on the body which gives the risk of side effects, some worse than others (“Chemotherapy”). Chemotherapy comes with multiple side effects such as hair loss, nausea, vomiting, and it can tear down a person's immune system (Cobern).  Chemotherapy can damage cells  formed in bone marrow, hair follicles causing hair loss, the mouth, and the digestive and reproductive system cells. Frequently damage are the heart, kidney, bladder, lungs, and nervous system cells (American). 

Since radiation has an intensive target, the treatment requires high grade technology. Radiation therapy, also known as radiotherapy, uses beams of high energy such as X-rays or proton radiation. To avoid damaging healthy tissues, the beams precisely target the designated area. Using a linear accelerator machine. Internal radiation is called brachytherapy, which is the most common cancer treatment. Through this process, a solid implant is placed near or inside the cancer as radiation tears down or destroys the genetic material used to produce more cells. However, not all cells destroyed are cancerous; most are healthy cells. The purpose of radiation is to eliminate cancer without causing harm to healthy cells (“Radiation”).  Doctors are always researching to treat cancer without damaging healthy cells and causing side effects.

Typically, cancer treatments such as chemotherapy target all cells, not just cancerous. "Wagner developed a tumor lysate particle only (TLPO) vaccine that uses a person's tumor cells to identify particular parts that are then presented back in the body..." (Cobern).  Using the vaccine strengthens the immune system, so it can fight off infection and cancer cells. Wagner attained data from two groups. One group was the vaccine-only group; the other group was the placebo group. Results indicated 95% of the only vaccine group lived three years longer while 64% were disease free. Melanoma stage 3 cancer patients experienced a 60% chance of survival with the vaccine with a 39% chance of survival in the placebo group. There was a 68% chance of survival for those that had stage 4 melanoma cancer in the vaccine group and 0% chance of survival in the placebo group (Cobern). The most common side effects reported are redness at the site of the injection, along with a fever and fatigue (Cobern).

CAR T cell therapy is an immunotherapy that uses the T cells which are then genetically changed to destroy cancer cells. CAR T cell therapy is FDA approved to treat multiple cancers;  however the 3 main cancers it effectively treats are leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. T cells help to fight infections throughout the whole body. Each cell has a receptor that will notice proteins that are in the immune system. If the immune system acknowledges the abnormal proteins and will operate to get rid of them. Most cancer cells have proteins that the body will not accept as abnormal. So, the immune system will not direct T cells to work against the cancer cells. Chimeric protein receptor T cells are changed in a laboratory. Where they develop new receptors that connect to the cancer cells to destroy them. As each cancer has its own proteins, each T cell therapy is made specifically for each protein (Brooks).

CAR T cell therapy has many complicated steps collecting, engineering, and infusing requiring multiple weeks to perform. First a blood sample is put into a machine which separates the T cells from the blood. Next, cells are engineered with CAR and tested to multiply and grow. Finally cells are infused back into the body. However, the recommendation is to still have chemotherapy to increase the treatment’s effectiveness (Brooks).