Cancer
Deborah Fish Ragin in Health Psychology, 2017
Having accepted the diagnosis, the patient’s next step is deciding on treatment options. The standard medical treatment options for individuals diagnosed with cancer are well known. Generally, medical treatments include surgery to remove the malignant tumor and any infected lymph nodes to prevent the spread of the disease to other parts of the body. It is also generally recommended that individuals who elect surgery receive either chemotherapy or radiation to kill remaining cancerous cells that were undetected during surgery or that could not be removed during the procedure. The benefits of a successful surgery and follow-up treatment are clear. The removal of the life-threatening tumor and the destruction of potentially dangerous cells reduce the probability that additional cancerous tumors will grow in the near future. The drawbacks of the treatment are also well known. Chemotherapy is a drug therapy that kills cancerous cells. But in the process of killing the “bad” cells it also kills healthy cells, usually white blood cells that are needed to boost the immune system (see Chapter 8, Psychoneuroimmunology, for a discussion of the immune system). In other words, chemotherapy drugs work indiscriminately, killing all cells in the targeted area. Chemotherapy is beneficial because it can either kill or slow the growth of cancer cells, thereby prolonging the life of an individual with cancer while minimizing discomfort or, when unable to do either, it can simply minimize the discomfort due to the disease. With few exceptions, individuals who receive chemotherapy experience a number of side effects from the drug that adversely affect their quality of life. These include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, a change in appetite, hair loss, excessively dry skin, fatigue, and pain (Moadei & Harris, 2008). And because chemotherapy kills the healthy white blood cells that are critical for the immune system, more serious complications include a severely depressed immune system. As we noted often in the current and previous chapters, a suppressed immune system increases the risk of infection and, in rare cases, can enable fatal opportunistic infections (see Chapter 8, Psychoneuroimmunology). The medical effectiveness of chemotherapy notwithstanding, there are significant psychological and well-being consequences to the treatment. For example, limitations in cognitive functioning, such as memory loss or sexual dysfunction, are common complaints. Although short-term memory loss and sexual dysfunction are physiological health issues, the effects of these changes often create psychological distress (Jansen, Miaskowski, Dodd, Dowling, & Kramer, 2005; Muscari, Lin, Aikin, & Good, 1999).
Nasal Cavity and Paranasal Sinus Cancer
Dongyou Liu in Tumors and Cancers, 2017
Treatment options for nasal cavity and paranasal sinus cancer include surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, targeted therapy, and palliative treatment [7]. By removing the entire tumor and a rim of surrounding normal tissue, surgery represents an essential part of treatment for nasal cavity and paranasal sinus cancer, especially in patients who fail to respond to radiotherapy. Radiotherapy may be used alone or after surgery. However, radiotherapy has some side effects, ranging from skin problems (sunburn-like effect), nausea, loss of appetite, feeling tired or weak, mouth/throat pain and sores in the mouth (mucositis), trouble swallowing, hearing loss, hoarseness, problems with taste, to tooth decay, bone pain, and damage. Chemotherapy (with carboplatin, cisplatin, 5-fluorouracil, docetaxel [Taxotere], paclitaxel [Taxol], bleomycin, cyclophosphamide [Cytoxan], vinblastine, and methotrexate) may be utilized along with surgery and/or radiation for more advanced, nonspreading cases, whereas chemotherapy alone is applied to cases with obvious spreading. Notable side effects of chemotherapy consist of nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, loss of hair, mouth sores, diarrhea, and low blood counts. Targeted therapy for nasal cavity and paranasal sinus cancer relies on the use of cetuximab (Erbitux), which may be combined with radiotherapy for some earlier stage cancers. For more advanced cancers, cetuximab may be combined with cisplatin. Palliative treatment can help ease symptoms from the main cancer treatment itself and maintain quality of life for as long as possible [8].
The patient is having chemotherapy
Wesley C Finegan in Being a Cancer Patient’s Carer, 2018
Chemotherapy is the use of medicines to kill cancer cells. The drugs may be given in tablet form but are often given as a drip into a vein and treatments can take anything from a few minutes to several hours to administer. Because the drugs must be freshly made up in a specially controlled environment, it can take a couple of hours to prepare the prescription. This means that the patient could wait an hour or so after seeing the doctor before starting their treatment session. Bring a good book, a drink and a snack if necessary! It is common for the patient to be given tablets to take for a few days after the treatment session. These drugs usually include something for sickness, a steroid to reduce the reaction to treatment and sometimes other medications. Steroids, especially in higher doses, can cause restlessness and some degree of agitation. They can affect one’s sleep, so to avoid sleep disruption it is best if the last dose is taken around 6pm. Steroids often stimulate the patient’s appetite.
Surgical management of chemotherapy-resistant gestational trophoblastic neoplasia
Published in Expert Review of Anticancer Therapy, 2010
Gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN) are a broad spectrum of placental lesions. Chemotherapy is the primary treatment for GTN and the vast majority of women with GTN are cured with their initial chemotherapy treatment. However, some patients become chemotherapy-resistant and fail to achieve a complete remission following initial chemotherapy and need salvage chemotherapy. A small minority of patients are still unresponsive to salvage multidrug chemotherapy. Currently, adjuvant surgical procedures could be excellent adjuncts to salvage chemotherapy in removing known foci of chemotherapy-resistant disease in selected patients with persistent GTN. This article will review the surgical management of chemotherapy-resistant GTN, focusing on the relevant indication of surgery, factors affecting efficacy and the use of surgical procedures in selected patients.
INTENSIVE CHEMOTHERAPEUTIC REGIMENS AGAINST ACUTE LEUKEMIA TRANSIENTLY SUPPRESS ASTHMA SYMPTOMS BUT DO NOT LEAD TO LONG-TERM RELIEF
Published in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, 2000
Steffen Weigel, S. M. Schmidt, T. Bernig, S. Mukodzi, J. F. Beck, E.-H. Ballke, S. K. W. Wiersbitzky
In some very rare cases children suffer from a combination of asthma and a malignant disease. This study investigated whether intensive chemotherapy might have a positive effect on asthma in these special cases and whether asthma generally relapses after completion of chemotherapy. The authors monitored clinical outcome and lung function of 43 children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma who received chemotherapy at the University Children's Hospital of Greifswald between 1993 and 1998. Cytostatic chemotherapy was administered according to the German treatment protocols. Two of the 43 patients had asthma before leukemia was diagnosed. During the course of chemotherapy, asthma symptoms diminished promptly after beginning of chemotherapy but asthma was rediagnosed after completion of chemotherapy in both cases. The third patient developed asthmatic symptoms shortly after completion of chemotherapy for the first time. It can be stated that chemotherapy does not essentially cure asthma. Therefore, it seems mandatory to perform follow-up lung testings after chemotherapy, especially in patients with asthma.
Advanced Stage III Ovarian Carcinoma: Prospective Randomized Trials Comparing Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy
Published in Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica, 1986
A prospective randomized trial was carried out in 128 patients with advanced stage III ovarian tumors of serous and anaplastic type, to compare the effects of radiotherapy, single-drug chemotherapy and combination chemotherapy on operability and survival. The effect on oper-ability was about the same for radiotherapy as for combination chemotherapy, whereas single-drug chemotherapy was less effective. The effect on survival was significantly greater with the combination chemotherapy than with radiotherapy and single-drug chemotherapy, which were roughly similar. This better survival with combination chemotherapy was observed in both poorly and moderately differentiated tumors.