Chemotherapy Protocol

Chemotherapy protocol is a concept familiar to cancer patients, but it remains totally unknown to people who do not have any direct or indirect contact with the disease. The chemotherapy protocol consists of all the procedures and medicine specificity, the expected results, the potential threats and the side effects related to the medication. 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, 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 specify the administration method, that is, the route of administration, as doctors refer to it (oral, intravenous, abdominal, etc). In some cases adjuvant treatment may be necessary 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. Such details cover the intervals that separate different cures as well as the concentration variation in the medication. 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.

Filed Under: Chemotherapy