Chemotherapy is a cancer treatment that involves the use of drugs to cure the disease. In most cases, high doses of chemotherapy drugs are administered to destroy the fast growing cells. It involves the administration of a single drug or a combination of drugs depending on the cancer stage and the health of the patient. The drugs to destroy the cancer cells also attack some healthy cells in the body. Therefore, the drug needs to the administered appropriately. Administering chemotherapy is a challenge in most cases, as a lot of things need to be considered before they are administered.

Chemotherapy can give a lot of side effects. In some cases, they have proved fatal as well. Fatigue, nausea, hair loss, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite, feeling of sickness are a few side effects experienced during chemotherapy.

Here are a few things to be considered while administering chemotherapy

• Patients need to consult the doctors to know the frequency and the entire schedule of the treatment. The stage of cancer, its location, size and its aggressiveness are taken into consideration before administering the drugs. Aggressive chemotherapy is used by considering the cancer stage and the cancer type.

• Chemotherapy in some cases is given on a continuous basis or in alternating blocks, giving your body some time to recover. As per American Cancer Society, the frequency of chemotherapy depends on a lot of factors. It can be given as frequently as every day or even once a month.

• If the doctors prescribe pills or drugs in liquid form for chemotherapy, the patients can consider, at-home chemotherapy if they feel that they can take the treatment without any assistance. Although these kinds of treatments can be taken without a medical supervisors help, it is important to follow the instructions provided by the medical advisors to administer the drugs. The family members of the patient should get the information about how is chemotherapy administered. You need to also be in constant touch with the doctors or nurses and let them know the drug’s progress and the side effects you are experiencing, if any.

• If chemotherapy treatment is administered through chemotherapy injection, patients can consider taking the drug at the doctor’s office. This would save the efforts and time by avoiding special trips to the hospital. The delay in the treatment can also be avoided thus saving a lot of your time and the cost of treatment. Injectable chemotherapy is not a very common method to administer chemotherapy but if the doctor recommends it, you should take complete advantage of the opportunity.

• In some cases, the drugs are directly induced into the patient’s veins. This is known as intravenous chemotherapy. The treatment works for both systemic and targeted chemotherapy. Targeted chemotherapy is given when the cancer is still in its primary stages when it is yet to spread. The drug is injected directly into the veins that lead to the affected area minimizing the spread of the disease. Systemic chemotherapy on the other hand is given when the cancer has already spread. In this case, the cancer cells needs to be attacked on a large scale.

Chemotherapy treatment, and its administration, is done keeping various factors in mind. Patients and doctors need to work in close coordination while the drugs are administered.