There’s a lot not to like about undergoing chemotherapy and it’s understandable you may be worried about the treatment. But you should be skeptical when worst-case scenarios are talked about as cold hard facts: You’ll lose all your hair; you’ll throw up constantly; you won’t be able to have children.

These side effects are not as common as you might believe.

Yes, chemotherapy is a systemic treatment that carries toxic chemicals throughout your body. It takes its toll as it attacks rapidly growing cancerous cells and healthy cells alike. But medical advancements have made cancer drugs much more tolerable for those who need chemotherapy as part of their cancer treatment regimen.

“Chemotherapy has a very bad rap,” says Dennis Citrin, MD, a Medical Oncologist at City of Hope Chicago. “While the cancer treatment itself has evolved for the better over the past few decades, its public perception hasn’t quite caught up. Educating patients about the facts is such an important piece of what we do every day.”

According to a study published in the June 2019 Lancet Oncology, more than half the new cases of cancer worldwide—excluding non-melanomatous skin cancers—required chemotherapy treatment. Going into the future, the study said the most common cancers treated with chemotherapy will be forms of lung cancer, breast cancer and colorectal cancer.

Because so many cancer patients are likely to have chemotherapy recommended to them, they should understand the truth and the myths regarding the treatment.