An antibiotic is a drug that counteracts and kills bacteria, viruses and protozoa, helping control infection.
It may sound odd, but the majority of these drugs are actually derived from other microbes. Chemicals produced by some microbes can be great weapons against others. Some antibiotics are not derived from microbes but synthetically manufactured.
There are many varieties of antibiotics and hundreds of drugs that control infections. The type of antibiotic your doctor prescribes for you depends on the type of infection you have and the choice of drugs effective against it.
Patients with cancer (including lymphomas) are prone to developing infections due to a fall in protective white blood cell (WBC) counts, either as a result of side effects of chemotherapy or due to the cancer involving the bone marrow. Doctors may need to use antibiotics to control infections in patients with cancer.
