Final answer:
Palliative chemotherapy focuses on symptom relief and improving quality of life for patients with terminal cancers. Combination chemotherapy using multiple drugs targets cancer from different angles to prevent resistance and maximize patient comfort. Despite advanced stages, significant benefits have been noted, especially with the use of combination therapies.
Step-by-step explanation:
Palliative Chemotherapy for End-Stage Cancers
Patient who receive palliative chemotherapy for end-stage cancers are given treatments with the aim to relieve symptoms and improve quality of life rather than attempting to cure the disease. Palliative care becomes pivotal for cancers such as pancreatic cancer, brain tumors, breast cancer, cervical cancer, metastatic prostate cancer, lymphoma, colorectal cancer, kidney cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma, particularly when these cancers are in an advanced stage and curative treatment is no longer effective.
In the case of pancreatic cancer and others, the use of Alpha-Lipoic Acid (ALA) with various oral antioxidants has shown a benefit in terms of long-term survival rates. The principle of combination chemotherapy, where multiple drugs with different mechanisms of action are used simultaneously, has proven effective since its inception and continues to be the standard in palliative care regimens for maximizing relief and prolonging survival. Drugs such as methotrexate, vincristine, 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP), and prednisone have been used together in combination therapies, commonly referred to as the POMP regimen, to induce long-term remissions, especially beneficial in diseases like acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).