To get down to more details, the chemotherapy protocol involves all the case circumstances, from the pathology of the disease to the location of the tumor and its stage of evolution. It should also include indications and contraindications, it should refer to all the situations that allow or forbid its applications and it ought to refer to scientific sources that may be consulted during 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 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 (abdominal, intravenous, oral, 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.

Finally, the chemotherapy protocol needs to tackle with 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.

The most widely used treatment of cancer is chemotherapy either followed or preceded by surgery. Chemotherapy patients usually have to deal with overwhelming physical and psychological stress. One’s morale can easily break down because of the physical sufferance chemotherapy brings. Self-esteem can hardly be maintained when facing extreme adverse reactions, since they may hair loss, all sorts of infections because of a weak immune system, dizziness and constant nausea, pains and the impossibility to lead a normal life. Some chemotherapy patients think that they lose the grip of who they are since many basic or favorite activities cannot be conducted as before.

Another impact level 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. Feeling alone and depressed could significantly alter the evolution of the disease. The impossibility to talk and share the experience with those close to you could lead to a very pessimistic view of the cancer condition, actually worsening the course of evolution.

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. Self-isolation will often be chosen as an option in such cases, but specialists indicate that it is wrong and detrimental to one’s well being to refuse support and face cancer alone.

All these considered, it is highly obvious that the friends and family members of chemotherapy patients should be informed about what their beloved ones are going through and about how help can be provided in such situations. Sometimes even professional psychological help could work miracles for the recovery and the support of chemotherapy patients. It’s an option that should not be ignored or overlooked.

The variety of the drugs used in chemotherapy is incredibly high with hundreds of medicines available. Some of these will trigger chemotherapy hair loss more quickly than others, but some may not even cause such a side effect. The difference in chemotherapy drug doses is relevant for chemotherapy hair loss, and while some patients will experience thinning of the hair others will go completely bald. 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.

In most cases you’ll start losing hair within ten or fourteen days after you start chemotherapy. It may fall out quite fast, either in clumps or gradually. Chemotherapy hair loss remains a problem throughout the entire period of the treatment and a month afterwards. Half of the hair can fall out before this is noticed by people around. Luckily, in most cases, chemotherapy hair loss represents a temporary effect. Hair will probably grow back within six months to one year after the cessation of the treatment. Although the regrowth of the hair occurs in most of the cases, the new hair could be of a different texture and shade temporarily.

It usually takes about four to six weeks for the hair to recover from chemotherapy, and the growth rate will be somewhere around a quarter inch per month. When the hair starts growing back again, it might be a little different from the hair that was lost because of therapy. The changes will stop and the hair will become what it used to be before the treatment the moment the cells that control the hair pigment begin working again. Unfortunately, one cannot prevent chemotherapy hair loss as none of the treatments available is completely free of such side effects.

Chemotherapy effects or side effects can be classified according to the extent of the adverse reactions into long and short term categories. Side effects of chemotherapy represent unwanted symptoms which occur as a direct result of taking a drug. sometimes chemotherapy effects are taken for cancer symptoms. Symptoms characterize the disease in fact, while the side effects consist of natural adverse reactions to a chemical 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 affects those cells that divide at a quicker pace. Chemotherapy will thus affect the bone marrow responsible for blood cells production, the mouth, the intestines, the skin and the hair. Since hair is growing all the time, the skin is constantly renewing itself and the lining of the digestive system and the mouth have the same dynamics, then, the new cells result from a rapid and constant division occurring in these parts of the body. And, unfortunately, it is due to this division process that the chemotherapy drugs attack proper functioning body parts.

Chemotherapy effects and adverse reactions also vary from one patient to another. The way one goes through chemotherapy therefore differs immensely, depending on some factors specific to every case. These elements refer to the period during which the drug has been taken, the dose or amount of drug, how the drug is administered, the patients overall health condition, as well as the combined use of chemotherapy medication and other remedies. Some chemotherapy effects represent serious medical conditions which must be dealt with; others, although upsetting, are not necessarily a major threat to the patients health. It is also relevant to discuss the effects of chemotherapy with the health care provider in order to be aware of what lies ahead and be able to bear the treatment in a good psychological shape.

A first category of chemotherapy drugs is the one relying on alkylating agents. These drugs have a very destructive effect on the bone marrow because they damage the DNA to stop the reproduction of the cancerous cells. Lots of cancer cases get treated with this kind of chemotherapy drugs, with the mention that doses are always kept low because of the risk to develop leukemia up to ten years after the cessation of the treatment. Platinum based medication is classified together with alkylating agents because of the similarity in their action.

Antimetabolites are another distinct class of chemotherapy drugs. They are prescribed for the treatment of leukemia, breast tumors, ovary and intestinal cancers and they also interfere not only with the DNA but also with the RNA.

The anthracyclines represent another variety of chemotherapy drugs being part of the antibiotic group. They work against enzymes that contribute to the DNA replication which is why they prove efficient in a large number of cancer cases.

The category of inhibitors comes next. The topoisomerase inhibitors help in separating and copying strands of DNA efficiently treating leukemia. The mitotic inhibitors are more natural-based derived from plants and they help in preventing enzymes from producing proteins required in cell reproduction. However, cancer patients undergo a huge risk with any chemical treatment they follow: these chemotherapy drugs could cause peripheral nerve damage to mention only one of the health threats you may fear.

Finally, the corticosteroids represent chemotherapy drugs based on hormones and meant to treat lymphoma, leukemia and myeloma besides other diseases. In addition to decreasing 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. Such medication doesn’t have to serve for cancer chemotherapy purposes exclusively, as there are other diseases that can be fought with it.

Chemotherapy, generally speaking, implies the treatment of a disease by means of chemicals which kill the sick cells. In more particular terms, 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 the drug cocktail established by the doctor, functions on the principle of cellular destruction. Unfortunately, these drugs also affect/attack other healthy cells that divide rapidly. These other cells that get attacked by a chemotherapy drug are digestive tract linings, the bone marrow and the hair follicles. Thus, the main side effects of chemotherapy will include hair loss, the inflammation of the digestive tract and the reduced production of blood cells.

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. More modern cancer treatments known as targeted therapy use anti-cancer medication that attacks only the abnormal proteins in cancer cells.

Different classes of chemotherapy drug medication are available at present. Thus there are antimetabolites, alkylating agents, topoisomerase inhibitors, anthracyclines and several others. While all these chemicals interfere with the DNA structure, there are newer and revolutionary medicines like the tyrosine kinase inhibitors or the monoclonal antibodies that leave the nucleic acids unaffected.

These ones target a molecular abnormality in peculiar types of cancer such as chronic myelogenous leukemia or gastrointestinal stromal tumors. More special chemotherapy drug options only change the behavior of the tumor cells without affecting other tissues. Within these adjuvant therapies the option very commonly used is the hormone treatment.

The decision to administer only one chemotherapy drug or a combination of several medicines belongs to the doctor and it is taken depending on the stage of the disease and the purpose of the treatment.

The basis for cancer chemotherapy was put in 1940 when doctors used folic acid an nitrogen mustards in the role of antagonist drugs. With the growing number of tumor cases, cancer chemotherapy has gradually turned into an industry producing an astounding amount of drugs of a huge diversity. 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 proves insufficient in the fight against the tumor growth. Consequently, where combined chemotherapy fails, surgery has to take the lead. Not even surgery can always remove a tumor completely, particularly since the cancerous cells may grow back again. 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 appears to have improved and extended the life expectations 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. There are plenty of categories of cancer chemotherapy drugs, and anyone interested can research on the Internet or in books. Whichever the medium of information, keep in mind the fact that the benefits and the risks brought about by a certain medication have to be carefully investigated and analyzed in the context of a patient’s medical history.