April 18th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
What is oral chemotherapy? The term refers to the way of administering chemotherapy, namely taking chemo drugs by mouth. Chemotherapy is medicine used in treating cancer and the ways to apply it are multiple. Nowadays, due to progress in cancer treatments and research, patients benefit from many different types of chemotherapy that can be taken in as tablet, liquid or capsule. Thus any drug that can be taken by mouth to treat cancer belongs to oral chemotherapy. The effects of pills will be the same, with the mention that they are more likely to trigger adverse reactions because of the impact on the digestive tract.
Some chemotherapy drugs can never be taken orally as they cannot be absorbed in the stomach or they can cause harm if swollen. As a matter of fact, most of the chemotherapy drugs are introduced into the patient
April 16th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Cancer is the twentieth century greatest enemy of all besides AIDS. Very many people lose their beloved ones to this illness and very many are still struggling with chemotherapy treatment as it is followed by the people they love. Understanding what cancer patients go through while following chemotherapy is very difficult but reading about it may shed a bit of light on how to help and comfort these patients. To begin with, chemotherapy side effects are aspects that patients deal with and find very difficult to handle.
Chemotherapy side effects are very numerous and vary in strength depending on the dosage of drugs and the length of the treatment. Most chemotherapy side effects are short term ones as they seem to completely go away once the therapy is stopped. Very rarely, there are encountered some effects that are long term or that may appear only years after following a certain treatment.
If you were interested in finding out more about the chemotherapy side effects of various treatments or combinations of drugs, you should know that there are a great deal of sources providing you with relevant information helpful in alleviating and understanding the pain the patient goes through. The list with potential chemotherapy side effects is about 200 items long and it includes such effects as abdominal pain, dizziness, nausea, chills, cardio-toxicity, edema, eye problems, lack of appetite, weight gain or loss, memory loss, leukemia, infections of various types in various parts of the body, nose bleeds, pulmonary embolus, pneumonia, rapid heartbeat, water retention, and so on. Going through such a list will surely turn out quite discouraging but you ought to know that these chemotherapy side effects will not appear all at once and in the same patient. They are each specific to a certain type of cancer and are definitely related to the type of drug or combination of drugs that the doctor has recommended as treatment.
Most cancer patients are explained by their doctors what chemotherapy side effects there may appear while following the treatment offered and how long they are going to persist, if so, once the treatment is stopped. Explaining what the patient will go through is very important as this will avoid having the patient panic about something that is usually associated with certain drugs. Most often, doctors consult their patients about the treatment they are to prescribe and may give patients options between treatments presenting the specific chemotherapy side effects and balancing them altogether.
April 16th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Cancer patients may have no other choice but to resort to chemotherapy in order to treat their illness. In oncology, adjuvant chemotherapy will have quite a special role for the patient because it is related to other cancer treatments. Adjuvant chemotherapy is an additional treatment given to the patient after surgery to help prevent any cancerous cells that may have not been completely removed during surgery from developing or increasing in number. The patient may relapse even if surgery has been performed because unfortunately, medicine is not sufficiently developed to be able to foresee whether cancer cells will reoccur or not.
Radiotherapy or regular chemical-based treatments are included in the adjuvant chemotherapy category and they are recommended by the doctors based on some statistical evidence which is employed in order to figure out whether there is low or high risk in relapse for the patient. Statistics show that about a third of the patients who have received adjuvant chemotherapy treatment have already been completely cured with the help of the surgery alone. For those who are not included in the above mentioned third, the long term purpose of the adjuvant chemotherapy is to lengthen the life of the cancer patients.
The types of cancer in which adjuvant chemotherapy is used are quite various and here we may include colon cancer, lung, pancreatic, breast and prostate cancer as well as some forms of gynecological cancers.
Beside the adjuvant chemotherapy, there is also another type of treatment that resembles the former in name; that is, neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. The latter is given to patients before the primary treatment and it may take the form of chemical drug-based treatment. For example, neo-adjuvant chemotherapy may be prescribed to a patient suffering from breast cancer who will have to undergo surgery for breast removal. The aim of such a type of therapy is to minimize the size of the tumor so that the surgery may be performed more efficiently and with less risk.
All in all, adjuvant chemotherapy has been identified as more effective when it is prescribed after the tumor removal rather than before it because the remaining cancer cells are fewer in number and, as a result, the drug is more powerful on them. The drugs specific to this type of treatment are most efficient when they are administered directly into the blood of the patient, that is, intravenously; another way of increasing drug efficiency is to insert it directly into the part of the body that is affected by cancer.
April 15th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Chemotherapy hair loss is one of the numerous effects of this cancer treatment. What is the reason why hair loss occurs during chemotherapy? Well, the drugs used in this type of cancer treatment are very strong, therefore very efficient in attacking the rapidly developing cancer cells. These medicines also attack other cells in the body that have a rapid growth; among these, the cells in the hair roots, as well. The effects of chemotherapy on hair are not limited only to the scalp as the procedure affects the hair on the body, too. Unfortunately, eyelashes, eyebrows, armpit and pubic hair and other body hair may also fall out.
There is a wide variety of drugs that are used in chemotherapy. Among these, obviously some are more likely to cause chemotherapy hair loss than others. The difference in chemotherapy drug doses is another aspect to consider when hair loss is under discussion, as hair loss ranges from thinning to complete baldness. Thus, discussing the medication that will be prescribed with the doctor and nurse is very important as they are the specialists able to inform the patient on what to expect from chemotherapy.
April 14th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Cancer is a disease that gains more and more of the ground we used to own in health matters especially now, in the 21st century. As a result, it is highly important that not only chemotherapy patients understand the risks and side effects of treatments but also those who are healthy and may or may not come in contact with cancer patients.
The most widely used treatment of cancer is chemotherapy either followed or preceded by surgery. Chemotherapy patients usually face a great deal of problems they have to go through. To begin with, there are the physical aspects that will break down their morale. The side effects that they will experience may eat away at their self-esteem, since they may include alopecia, constant nausea and dizziness, pains and infections of all sorts depending on the part of the body that is affected or on the type of medication that has been prescribed to follow. Some chemotherapy patients feel that they are somewhat physically impaired since they can no longer perform certain activities that have previously defined their life or that have brought smiles on their faces.
Another level of impact on chemotherapy patients is the psychological one. They need to receive the moral needed support from their family and friends and the trouble is that many choose not to share this burden with their loved ones. Because of this, they will most likely lack in support and will have to carry this burden by themselves. Not being able to talk about it as they would, not being able to share will make them feel marginalized, separated from the people in their lives and will break their morale.
On the other hand, those chemotherapy patients that initially build rapport with family and friends and choose to communicate about it and share the burden, may end up feeling guilty for spoiling family life and for being set on the top priority list, a list that is usually not considered a pleasure bringing one. They themselves may end up feeling that they have turned into a burden to their family putting strain on relationships and may choose to seclude themselves as a result of this feeling.
All these considered, it is highly obvious that family and friends of chemotherapy patients should get informed about what their beloved ones are going through and about how help can be provided in such situations. The moral strength of chemotherapy patients can be kept above surface level or increased only by psychologists and people who honestly display affection and interest in helping.
April 13th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Chemotherapy drugs are pretty numerous and they fall into various categories following such criteria as the way they work, the relationship they establish with other drugs and the chemical structure they have. Most drugs are based on chemicals obtained from plants and this very origin or source leaves room to further classification. And, last but not least, one drug may be found in various categories as they may have several effects on the body of the patient. Doctors have a very precise duty of getting fully informed about chemotherapy drugs and know how to combine them or in what order to prescribe them to cancer patients.
A first category of chemotherapy drugs is the one relying on alkylating agents. These drugs are pretty damaging to the bone marrow because they damage the DNA to prevent the cancerous cells from reproduction. This type of chemotherapy drugs is used in a wide variety of cancers and it is recommended only in small dosage to reduce the risk of leukemia that may appear 5 or 10 years after following the recommended chemotherapy treatment. The platinum based drugs are sometimes included in the same category because they act in a very similar manner against the disease.
Another category of chemotherapy drugs is the one consisting of antimetabolites. They are used in treating leukemia, breast tumors, ovary and intestinal cancers and they also interfere not only with the DNA but also with the RNA.
The anthracyclines are another type of chemotherapy drugs being part of the antibiotic group. They work against enzymes that help in DNA replication and they are encountered in a wide variety of cancer treatments.
Next is the category of inhibitors. The topoisomerase inhibitors help in separating and copying strands of DNA being helpful for the treatment of leukemia besides many other types of cancer. The mitotic inhibitors are more natural-based derived from plants and they help in preventing enzymes from producing proteins required in cell reproduction. However, there is one huge risk that patients take when following such a treatment: these chemotherapy drugs may cause peripheral nerve damage to mention just one the health threats one may fear.
Last but not least, the corticosteroids are chemotherapy drugs based on hormones meant to treat lymphoma, leukemia and myeloma together with other diseases. Besides reducing the speed of cell growth, they also have a good impact on the way the body reacts to chemotherapy by preventing nausea, vomiting or other types of allergic reactions. These types of drugs may be used as chemotherapy ones or not, depending on the purpose they are supposed to serve.
April 12th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Breast chemotherapy refers to the treatment applied to patients who suffer from breast cancer. Its purpose is to kill or to reduce in size the tumor consisting of cells that multiply very quickly compared to the normal rate of multiplication of normal cells. Breast chemotherapy can be of very many kinds depending on the combination of drugs that the doctor has selected for you. That is why it is highly important that patients and their family ask for clarifications from their doctors in case they haven
April 11th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Once a patient is diagnosed with cancer, it is required that the doctor recommend him/her the appropriate types and dosages of cancer chemotherapy drugs. It is highly important that doctors take enough time and display enough patience in talking to the patient suffering from such a serious condition. The doctor-patient relationship is almost as important nowadays as the suggested cancer chemotherapy is because offering a good treatment without carefully explaining the steps to follow and the potential side effects that may appear along the way may completely discourage the patient. The morale of the individual and the feeling that someone is closely advising and supervising him/her are very important in handling such a burden of an illness.
Cancer chemotherapy was first used in the 1940s when doctors prescribed mostly nitrogen mustards and folic acid as antagonist drugs. Since more and more patients turned up to suffer from the same condition, that is cancer, cancer chemotherapy has apparently become an industry registering huge success on the market through the wide variety of drugs that it produces. Even though one may think that the world has impressively evolved since the 1940s, it is surprisingly enough to mention that most of the principles discovered back then in cancer chemotherapy still apply today.
Sometimes cancer chemotherapy seems not to be efficient enough to stop the growth of cancer cells. As a result, the combined chemotherapy regimen may not be sufficient and the doctor may recommend surgery. This procedure is not always one hundred percent certain in removing entirely the tumor and there are still chances that the cancerous cells may reoccur. So doctors and researchers have come up with an adjuvant cancer chemotherapy treatment that relies on drugs meant to prevent the recurrence of cancer and clear away any signs of cancer left after removing the tumor. This cancer chemotherapy adjuvant seems to have really lengthened the life of many patients suffering from colon cancer.
Chemotherapy means drugs that have various purposes and patients should learn what types of drugs they are using and what risks or side effects these drugs pose. The categories in which chemical drugs fall are pretty numerous but there are lots of sources to be consulted either under the form of books in libraries or text posted on Internet sites. Whichever the medium of getting informed, remember that associating the action of the drug, with the risks it brings along and with what other medicine it can be combined is utterly important before starting a certain cancer chemotherapy treatment.
April 11th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Chemotherapy refers to the treatment of a disease by means of chemicals meant to kill cells, typically cells of micro-organisms or cancer. This treatment works by attacking and killing cells which divide very quickly as cancer cells do. Unfortunately, chemotherapy damages cells that have a rapid division process which is normal for the body functions; this is the case with the cells in the digestive tract, hair follicles and bone marrow. Hence, the chemotherapy effects usually damage these areas. The most common side effects that occur during and after chemotherapy include myelosuppresion – decrease in the production of blood cells, mucositis – inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract, and alopecia – hair loss.
Chemotherapy effects or side effects can be divided into two major groups as short and long term. Side effects of chemotherapy represent unwanted symptoms which occur as a direct result of taking a drug. It is not difficult to confuse drug side effects with symptoms of cancer. Symptoms are specific to the disease in fact, while the side effects represent natural adverse reactions to a powerful external intervention in the body. Anyway, various chemotherapy drugs have different short term and long term side effects; not all chemotherapy drugs lead to every side effect.
Generally speaking, chemotherapy harms those cells that divide at a quicker pace as we have already mentioned. The mouth, intestines, skin, hair, bone marrow (the spongy material that fills your bones and produces new blood cells) are mainly affected by chemotherapy. Since hair is growing all the time, the skin is constantly renewing itself and the lining of the mouth and digestive system have the same dynamics, the cells of all these body tissues must constantly divide to produce a steady supply of new cells. And, unfortunately, when cells are dividing, chemotherapy drugs attack them.
It is known that most drugs used in chemotherapy have side effects, yet, not all the patients get the same chemotherapy effects. The intensity of the experience, and their evolution during the treatment depend on many various factors. These elements include the period during which the drug has been taken, the dose or amount of drug, how the drug is administered, the patient’s general health state, as well as the combination of the chemotherapy drug with other medicines. Some chemotherapy effects are serious medical conditions which must be dealt with; others, although upsetting, are not necessarily damaging to the patient’s health. It is also important to discuss the effects of chemotherapy with the doctor and the contact person at the treating center where the patient is given the treatment.
April 10th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Cancer refers to the uncontrolled growth of cells combined with malignant behavior – invasion and metastasis. The cause for this disease is believed to be the interaction of environmental toxins and the genetic susceptibility. Basically, the chemotherapy drug’s functioning principle is to impair cell division (mitosis), targeting rapidly-dividing cells. The fact that these drugs destroy cells leads to their being named cytotoxic.
Chemotherapy, generally speaking, implies the treatment of a disease by means of chemicals which kill the sick cells. Particularly speaking, chemotherapy is used to kill the cells of micro-organisms or cancer. Chemotherapy usually refers to antineoplastic drugs which are used to treat cancer or to the combination of these drugs into a cytotoxic standardized treatment regimen. From a non-oncological perspective, the term chemotherapy also refers to antibiotics – this is known as antibacterial chemotherapy.
A chemotherapy drug, or better a combination of such drugs, functions by destroying cells that divide quickly. Unfortunately, these drugs also affect/attack other healthy cells that divide rapidly. These other cells that get attacked by the chemotherapy drug are cells in the hair follicles, bone marrow and digestive tract. The results on the normal rapid-dividing cells are the side effects of chemotherapy: alopecia – hair loss, myelosuppression – decreased production of blood cells, and mucositis – inflammation of the digestive tract.
Among the other uses of the chemotherapy drug and cytostatic chemotherapy agents there are the treatment of autoimmune diseases (multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis) and the suppression of transplant rejections. There are newer anti-cancer drugs which were designed to act directly against abnormal proteins in cancer cells; this treatment option is known as targeted therapy.
When talking about a chemotherapy drug, we should be aware that there are different types available at present. Most of the drugs can be divided into alkylating agents, antimetabolites, plant alkaloids, topoisomerase inhibitors, anthracyclines, and other antitumor agents. Some newer agents, like monoclonal antibodies and tyrosine kinase inhibitors, do not interfere directly with the DNA as do the above mentioned ones.
These ones target a molecular abnormality in particular types of cancer such as gastrointestinal stromal tumors or chronic myelogenous leukemia. Besides these, there is also the category of drugs that modulate the tumor cell behavior without directly attacking those cells. Within these adjuvant therapies the option very commonly used is the hormone treatment.
Depending on the stage of the disease and the aim of the treatment, doctors will choose to administer one chemotherapy drug or a combination of drugs according to one or another of the existing strategies.
April 9th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Melanoma is a type of cancer that affects the skin and is recognized by the dark spots that appear on the dermis. In order to treat melanoma, diagnostic tests must first be completed and then the cancer team will be able to recommend one or maybe more treatment options. Melanoma chemotherapy is one of the possibilities here. Anyway, patients should consider these treatment variants carefully, without rushing into one of them. First of all, patients ought to understand everything about the treatments. It is obvious that the choice of the procedure depends on the thickness of the primary tumor and the stage of the disease mainly.
Among the treatments for melanoma there are options like surgery and chemotherapy. There are different choices in as far as surgery is concerned, depending on where and how advanced the melanoma is. Thus doctors might consider re-excision, amputation or lymph node dissection. If melanoma has spread from the skin to distant organs, then surgery will not be a curable option to use. Therefore, melanoma chemotherapy might be the solution. Systemic chemotherapy that is normally involved in the procedure uses injectable anticancer drugs.
These are usually injected into a vein or taken orally. Melanoma chemotherapy drugs travel through the bloodstream to all parts of the body. They attack cancer cells which have already spread beyond the skin to lymph nodes or other organs. The drugs kill cancer cells but, unfortunately they also destroy some normal cells as well. Among these normal cells that can be killed are blood-producing cells of the bone marrow, cells that line the gastrointestinal tract and cells of hair follicles. As a result, patients will go through temporary side effects like nausea and vomiting, mouth sores, loss of appetite and loss of hair.
Melanoma chemotherapy drugs include temozolomide, cisplatin, vinblastine, DTIC, BCNU and tamoxifen. DTIC can be used alone or with other chemotherapy drugs like BCNU and cisplatin. The above three combined with tamoxifen, which is a hormonal therapy drug commonly used in treating breast cancer, bear the name Dartmouth Regimen. Then there is another combination of DTIC, cisplatin and vinblastine to use against melanoma. Temozolomide is a newer medicine, whose mode of function is similar to that of DTIC, except that it is used in the form of a pill.
Since melanoma chemotherapy drugs kill normal blood cells as well, patients might experience low blood cell counts and this can lead to bleeding or bruising after even minor cuts or injuries; excessive tiredness (frequently because of low red blood cell counts but also because of chemotherapy itself) and an increased chance of infection (because of white blood cell shortage).
April 9th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Most cancer patients that have started undergoing chemotherapy would most likely be able to speak about their chemotherapy protocol and would know what that is. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it is a list of procedures and characteristics that describe the aim, the means, the potential risks and complications and the expected positive results of the medication that is included in the chemotherapy treatment offered by the doctor. This protocol is to be used as a sort of guide or reference throughout the prescribed treatment.
To get down to more details, the chemotherapy protocol should present the prescription circumstances, meaning that it should specify the pathology type that the treatment has been prescribed for (the location of cancer, the cancer stage, and so on). It should also include indications and contraindications, it should pinpoint all the situations in which this specific chemotherapy protocol should be allowed or forbidden and it ought to make references to specialized literature for whatever sort of clarifications may be needed throughout the treatment.
Another important aspect of the chemotherapy protocol is to include information and clear description of the drugs that the patient will take. Drug information will have to refer here to the dosage which is usually established depending on the patient’s body weight, surface, the appropriate concentration to be found in the blood, and so on. Other details should make reference to the day and the hour(s) when the dosage should be administered and the period of the administration. Moreover, the chemotherapy protocol should specify how the drug is to be administered, that is, the route of administration, as doctors call it (oral, intravenous, abdominal, etc). In some cases adjuvant treatment may be required and that should also be mentioned in the protocol together with all the precautions and measures that ought to be taken during and after the treatment.
Last but not least, the chemotherapy protocol should talk about the cycles of the treatment. That means it should specify the intervals that separate the various cures and whether the dose intensity varies or not, and if so, under what circumstances. It should also stipulate the recommended number of cycles, the toxicity that the drugs may lead to, the level of recovery reached before beginning a new cycle, the conditions that may require partial or complete cessation of treatment, the modifications and the ways for the patient to adapt to dose increase or decrease.
April 9th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
Do you realize how painful it is to watch someone dear to you ravished by the fight with cancer? And it all has to do with the perception we have of cancer and with the very intense chemotherapy medication administered to patients diagnosed with this malignant disease. All sorts of treatments and therapeutic approaches are available, but in general lines, it is all reduced to types of chemotherapy.
Lots of solutions are possible starting from the treatment diversity, but each and every one has its challenges. Based on a certain protocol that also involves decision making as to when, how long, how often and under what circumstances the treatment should be applied, the doctor will also choose from the potential types of chemotherapy that which is mostly indicated for a particular case.
The list with the types of chemotherapy drugs is pretty long and it might turn out a bit confusing for those that have never come into contact with chemo until now. It includes alkylating agents chemotherapy, alkaloid-based treatment, anti-tumor antibiotics, antimetabolites, topoisomerase inhibitors, antineoplastics and so on. Each of the categories mentioned above may include tens of types of medication out of which the doctor should select the appropriate ones.
Out of the many types of chemotherapy treatments the doctors will choose one based on a protocol and will take into account when doing so the response rate of a certain patient to the suggested drug. These response rates are established based on research that has been done so far analyzing the treatments that have been applied and their results. For example, the response rate of a combination of drugs selected out of several types of chemotherapy may be of 70% which means that, out of 100, 70 patients with that type of tumor and the same stage of cancer have responded positively to that treatment.
The rest of 30 may not respond at all to the treatment or may have the minimally expected results which are not satisfactory from a medical point of view. In that case the doctor has to act fast and direct the patient to another of the many types of chemotherapy that might have a better effect.
All in all, the choice and application of types of chemotherapy are tricky. Doctors need to constantly monitor and administer tests to their patients in order to make the right decisions at the right time for them. This line of work requires a great deal of responsibility and carries lots of emotional burdens because someone’s life may depend only on the doctor’s decision.
April 7th, 2009 -- Posted in Chemotherapy | Comments Off
The chemotherapy treatment relies on chemicals that destroy cells considered ill especially those that are cancerous or of micro-organism origin. In case of cancer, the two forms that are most often referred to are leukemia and lymphoma. There are also some cases in which the chemotherapy treatment is applied even if the condition the patient suffers from is not cancer. In this case, the dosage of chemicals used in the procedure is lower and as a result side effects will be alleviated.
Once someone is discovered with cancer, first of all it is important to identify what type of cancer the doctors are dealing with, where in the body the cancer started as. Depending on these factors, the combination of drugs may differ. In all, there are more that 200 types of cancer out of which some more commonly encountered forms affect breasts, the gall bladder, the larynx, the liver, the lungs, the lymph nodes, the ovaries, the skin and so on. Depending on which type of cancer is discovered, doctors will recommend either a singular medication or a cocktail of drugs in the form of the chemotherapy treatment. In all, there are more than fifty drugs that are recommended worldwide in chemotherapy treatments.
The manner in which the drugs act against the disease is that they attack the cancerous cells which have the specific characteristic of dividing themselves very quickly and thus multiplying themselves at an incredible speed. Besides drug mixes, doctors may also recommend that patients should combine chemotherapy treatment with other types of therapy (such as radiotherapy, hormonal or biological therapy) or with surgery.
As most of you may have heard, the chemotherapy treatment is not very friendly to the body of the individual undergoing the procedure as there are side effects that are not wanted or easily accepted at all. These side effects vary depending on the types of drugs that are used and, a good thing, they disappear once the treatment is stopped. Therefore, even if they are displeasing, side effects are temporary, and at the end of the treatment one can be thankful for being alive.
Most often, drugs affect those parts of the body where normal, healthy cells divide and grow rapidly without being ill, like the mouth, the digestive system, the skin, the hair and the bone marrow. The incidence of chemotherapy is pretty widely encountered today especially with the growing ranks of cancer patients. If it used to be something less known in the past, almost everyone has heard about it nowadays. Hopefully, none of us will need to go into further details!
