chemotherapy

Examples of chemotherapy in the following topics:

• Chemotherapy and Hair Loss

  • Therefore, alopecia, or, hair loss, is a common, unwanted effect of chemotherapy.
  • Hair typically begins to fall out two to three weeks after the start of chemotherapy.
  • The loss of hair during chemotherapy is almost always temporary, and hair will usually start to grow back two to three months after the completion of chemotherapy.
  • Chemotherapy can cause a person's hair to change color, or grow back straighter or curlier.
  • Cooling the scalp using a hypothermia cap can help prevent or reduce hair loss from chemotherapy.

• Medical Uses of Hematopoietic Growth Factors

  • Hemopoetic growth factors show promise in improving the lives of those suffering from kidney disease or recovering from chemotherapy.
  • Chemotherapy can cause myelosuppression and unacceptably low levels of white blood cells, making patients prone to infections and sepsis.
  • Thrombopoietin shows great promise for preventing platelet depletion during chemotherapy.
  • Theoretical uses include the procurement of platelets for donation and recovery of platelet counts after myelosuppressive chemotherapy.
  • GCSF is a glycoprotein growth factor that stimulates the bone marrow and is used therapeutically in certain cancer patients to accelerate recovery from neutropenia after chemotherapy.

• Lymphomas

  • Lymphoma is cancer of the lymphocytes and and is treated with chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
  • Treatment might involve chemotherapy and, in some cases, radiotherapy, and/or bone marrow transplantation.
  • If a low-grade lymphoma is becoming symptomatic, radiotherapy or chemotherapy are the treatments of choice.
  • This treatment typically consists of aggressive chemotherapy.
  • Advanced Hodgkin disease requires systemic chemotherapy, sometimes combined with radiotherapy.

• Colorectal Cancer

  • Cancers that are confined within the wall of the colon are often curable with surgery, while cancer that has spread widely around the body is usually not curable and management then focuses on extending the person's life via chemotherapy and improving quality of life.
  • Sometimes chemotherapy is used before surgery to shrink the cancer before attempting to remove it.
  • Chemotherapy may be used in addition to surgery in certain cases.
  • If the lymph nodes do not contain cancer the benefits of chemotherapy are controversial.

• Overview of Cancer

  • Chemotherapy: In addition to surgery, this has proven useful in a number of different cancer types.
  • Chemotherapy refers to the administration of a toxin that targets rapidly dividing cells and promotes their cell death.
  • It is nonspecific to tumors and it's effect on other rapidly dividing cells, such as those of the hair follicle, give rise to the side-effects associated with chemotherapy.
  • Radiation is typically used in addition to surgery and/or chemotherapy.

• Spinal Cord Compression

  • Some tumors are highly sensitive to chemotherapy (e.g. lymphomas, small-cell lung cancer) and may be treated with chemotherapy alone.

• Breast Cancer

  • This may include surgery, drugs (hormonal therapy and chemotherapy), radiation and/or immunotherapy.
  • To promote the likelihood of long-term disease-free survival, several chemotherapy regimens are commonly given in addition to surgery.
  • Most forms of chemotherapy kill cells that are dividing rapidly anywhere in the body and so cause temporary hair loss and digestive disturbances.

• Pancreatic Cancer

  • After surgery, chemotherapy has been shown to significantly increase the five-year survival rate, from approximately 10 to 20 percent.
  • In patients not suitable for resection with curative intent, palliative chemotherapy may be used to improve quality of life and gain a modest survival benefit.

• Lung Cancer

  • Common treatments include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy.
  • Common treatments include palliative care, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy.

• Complete Blood Count

  • Abnormally low numbers of reticulocytes can be attributed to chemotherapy, aplastic anemia, pernicious anemia, bone marrow malignancies, problems of erythropoietin production, various vitamin or mineral deficiencies (B9, B12, iron), disease states (anemia of chronic disease) and other causes of anemia due to poor RBC production.