Explain how cancer treatments can work at the cellular level?

Answer 1

Chemotherapy prevents all cell growth (which is why people lose their hair), so that the abnormally growing cells stop producing and then radiation is introduced to kill the cells that already exist.

Answer 2

At the cellular level, the objective is to shut the errant cancer cell down.

Since most cancer cells have certain signatures, such as immaturity of development, drugs have been developed that can zero in on the cells at a certain stage of development, destroy them, while theoretically sparing "mature" cells. In a perfect world at least.

Thus the tumor is impacted, at the cellular level.

Answer 3

Cancer cells behave differently, like growing faster and taking up nutrients, so if a treatment can take advantage of the difference, a drug or toxin or tag can be sent to be absorbed by only the cancer cells mixed in with the good ones. Depending on the treatment, the drug might work directly or it might make the cancer cell more vulnerable to something, like radiation or toxin, that affects the whole body.