Chemotherapy drugs by Ray Sahelian, M.D. Benefit and Side Effects of Chemotherapy drugs

Chemotherapy is the use of chemical substances to treat disease. Most people use the term chemotherapy to refer primarily to drugs used to treat cancer.

Drugs used in chemotherapy
There are dozens of common drugs used in chemotherapy by oncologists (cancer specialists). Here is a discussion of a few:

5-fluorouracil (5-FU) - In cancer patients, treatment with the probiotic Lactobacillus reduces the frequency of severe diarrhea and abdominal pain that often comes with 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)-based chemotherapy.
Anthracyclines are used to treat a variety of cancers, including leukemia, lymphomas, uterine, ovarian and breast cancer.
Carboplatin
Cisplatin is used widely to treat different cancers including testicular, germ cell, head and neck, bladder and lung cancer.
Cyclophosphamide
Thiotepa

Chemotherapy risk for breast cancer patients - mental decline
As a treatment for high-risk breast cancer patients, chemotherapy with high-dose cyclophosphamide, thiotepa, and carboplatin is associated with a drop in cognitive performance over time.

Chemotherapy risk - increase in heart disease
Chemotherapy medicines called anthracyclines are used to treat a variety of cancers, including leukemia, lymphomas, uterine, ovarian and breast cancer. They also weaken the hearts of those who are exposed to these drugs during chemotherapy..

Taxol chemotherapy not worth it
October 2007 - Taxol does not work for the most common form of breast cancer and helps far fewer patients than has been believed. More than 20,000 women each year in the United States alone might be spared the side effects of Taxol chemotherapy drug or similar ones without significantly raising the risk their cancer will return. That would be roughly half of all breast cancer patients who get chemo now. Taxol does not help women whose tumors are HER-2 negative.

Ondansetron for chemotherapy associated nausea
FDA has approved the first generic versions of Zofran (ondansetron) injection and injection premixed. Ondansetron is used to prevent nausea and vomiting associated with initial and repeat courses of cancer chemotherapy and following surgery.

Chemotherapy causes brain cells to die
Chemotherapy causes changes in sensitive areas of the brain, which may partly account for some of the previously reported cognitive difficulties reported by patients and referred to as "chemobrain." The nerve cell mechanisms responsible for cognitive impairments related to chemotherapy are not completely understood, say Dr. Masatoshi Inagaki, of the National Cancer Center Hospital East in Chiba, Japan. Among 105 women who participated in a 1-year study, 51 received chemotherapy and 54 did not. Among the 132 women in a 3-year study, 73 received chemotherapy and 59 did not. Women treated with chemotherapy showed changes in a number of brain regions involving in mental functioning. Three years later, however, these differences were no longer apparent. It appears that chemotherapy could have a temporary effect on brain structure. Cancer, January 1, 2007. Mark Noble, a specialist in neural stem cell biology at the University of Rochester, New York, led a research team which tested healthy brain cells with normal clinical doses of chemotherapy drugs carmustine, cisplatin and cytosine arabinoside. The drugs are often used to treat people suffering certain breast cancers, lung cancer, colon cancer, leukemia, brain tumors and some lymphomas. The study found that the drugs were more toxic to neural cells than to the cancer cells they targeted. The drugs killed 70-100 percent of brain cells, while only 40-80 percent of the cancer cells were killed. Tested on animal neural cells, the cells kept dying for six weeks after the chemotherapy treatment was administered, the study found.

Nurse exposure to chemotherapy drugs
When oncology nurses have skin contact with chemotherapy drugs, it seems to increase the time needed to conceive and to also raise the risk of premature delivery. Even very low (skin exposure to chemotherapy drugs can cause an elevated risk of a prolonged time to pregnancy, premature delivery, or a low birth weight, even when gloves are worn during work, according to Dr. Wouter Fransman  from Utrecht University in the Netherlands. On average, nurses with skin exposure to chemotherapy drugs took one month longer than unexposed nurses to get pregnant, the authors report. Moreover, nurses exposed to chemotherapy drugs were twice as likely as unexposed nurses to deliver a low birthweight child. Epidemiology, January 2007.

Chemotherapy questions
Q. My husband has stage four colon cancer he is taking Plavix 75mg, Imdur 30mg, toprol ZL 25mg once daily. He is to start chemotherapy tablets Xeloda. What supplements would you recommend?
   A. We can't give individual advice buy you could take a look at the colon cancer page for suggestions. We wish him the best outcome.