Is a chemotherapy regime ever changed mid cycle?!
Question: Is a chemotherapy regime ever changed mid cycle.?
Has anyone ever heard of a chemo regime (3 cycles) being changed (an increase of the dosage of the drugs) because a patient tolerates the first cycle well.? Health Question & Answer
Answers:
Yes. Sometimes initial doses of drugs are low because those drugs can be toxic. Not just chemotherapy drugs, certain antibiotics and others also. Doses are usually calculated from body weight and also kidney and liver function, but there are usually maximum, minimum and initial dose levels to protect against overdose and adverse effects.
Chemo drugs can be particularly dangerous because they are designed to kill cells. at the right levels they kill mostly cancer cells. but if the levels in the blood are too high, they will kill indiscriminately, usually causing low blood cell counts and other toxic effects. After one round, blood test and observation will indicate whether the doses are appropriate. I would not be surprised to see alteration in doses. A raising of the dose indicates that the initial dose was not high enough to ensure optimum effects against the cancer.
Another reason for altering a regime would be if the patient did not tolerate the drugs, eg an allergy or sever side effects, but that would mean changing the drugs themselves, not the dosages.Health Question & Answer
Chemo drugs can be particularly dangerous because they are designed to kill cells. at the right levels they kill mostly cancer cells. but if the levels in the blood are too high, they will kill indiscriminately, usually causing low blood cell counts and other toxic effects. After one round, blood test and observation will indicate whether the doses are appropriate. I would not be surprised to see alteration in doses. A raising of the dose indicates that the initial dose was not high enough to ensure optimum effects against the cancer.
Another reason for altering a regime would be if the patient did not tolerate the drugs, eg an allergy or sever side effects, but that would mean changing the drugs themselves, not the dosages.Health Question & Answer
Yes, that happened to my aunt. She tollerated it well, and they wanted to treat more aggressively if they could. They upped the dosage for the 3rd cycle.Health Question & Answer
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Health Question & Answer
Yes. Depends on how well you tolerate the chemo. It can be changed either way ,up or down.Health Question & Answer