cancer chemotherapy
July 29th, 2009 | by Clare |
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.
When going into 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 refer to all the situations that allow or forbid its applications and it ought to make references to scientific sources that may be consulted during the treatment.
Another important part of the chemotherapy protocol is to include information and clear description of the drugs that the patient will take. Drug information means dosage first and foremost, since the medicine concentration is influenced by the tumor size and the patient’s body weight and medical history. Other details in the chemotherapy protocol include info on cyclical administration and the time interval between doses. Moreover, the chemotherapy protocol should indicate the administration method, that is, the route of administration, as doctors call it (oral, intravenous, abdominal, etc). Under certain circumstances adjuvant treatment may be necessary which represents another piece of information that has to be specified in the chemotherapy protocol together with possible precautions and measures.
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. The protocol should further determine how many cycles are necessary, whether the toxicity of the drugs represents a health risk, the level of recovery after every cycle of the treatment and so on.