"Crab" care and cancer chemotherapy

The letters CRAB indicate that there are four broad uses of chemotherapy in treating solid tumours: (i) curative, which is always the aim but as yet can rarely be reliably achieved with chemotherapy alone; (ii) relieving chemotherapy for widespread or incurable disease; (iii) adjuvant care to prevent peripheral occult disease developing after standard surgery or radiotherapy; and (iv) basal chemotherapy, to reduce the size, viability and especially the peripheral extent of large, localized tumour masses in preparation for definitive treatment usually by radiotherapy and/or extirpative surgery.