Before you read about bone marrow repression caused by chemotherapy and its effect, you must make yourself familiar with the terms ‘bone marrow repression’ or ‘mylesuppression as a side effect of chemotherapy’. In our body, the bone marrow is the manufacturing unit of blood cells. Chemotherapy destroys or suppresses the rapidly dividing cells to stop cancerous growth. The shortcoming being that it treats both normal as well as carcinogenic cells alike. The stem cells in bone marrow are rapidly multiplying cells which continuously replenish RBC, WBC and platelets in our blood. Chemotherapy vitiates the functioning of these cells thus impairing their productivity to produce new blood cells. The patients undergoing leukemia chemotherapy  are most prone to have bone marrow repression as a side effect of chemotherapy .

Some common symptoms of bone marrow inhibition are:

1. Anemia: This results due to reduction in RBC Count
2. Neutropenia: A decreased level of WBC is termed as Neutropenia
3. Thrombocytopenia: A fall in blood platelets leads to Thrombocytopenia

Symptoms and Cure of Anemia

The regular indicators of anemia i.e. lack of hemoglobin content in RBC includes:

1. Fatigue & tiredness
2. Dizziness
3. A pale appearance
4. Difficulty in breathing
5. Heart Palpation (i.e. a feeling of heart beating fast and irregularly)

Depending upon the seriousness of anemia your doctor could suggest some medication or prescribe iron
supplements. In critical condition the professionals could even delay your next sitting or dose. Blood
transfusion is also a possibility in severe cases.

Symptoms and Cure of Neutropenia

Neutropenia is a situation where the number of neutrophils in the blood decreases. Neutrophils form the WBC.
The reduction in WBC Count could be alarming as it reduces the capability of body to fight against any infections
Symptoms of neutropenia in chemotherapy include

1. Dizziness
2. Fever above 100.5 F
3. Cough
4. Shortness of breath

Your doctor could advise to avoid infectious environment, prevent interacting with ill people or moving in a crowded
place. He/she could possibly delay the next infusion.

Symptoms and Cure of Thrombocytopenia

Platelets play a key role in blood clotting. Low blood platelet count could result in massive bleeding, bruising,
excretion of blood in urine or stool and heavy menstrual flow.

If the platelet count is very low your advisor could suggest some platelet transfusion or could prescribe
some medication to signal more platelets formation from bone marrow.

Conclusively, the bone marrow repression caused by chemotherapy and its effect can be very harmful for the health of the patients. However, once the treatment is stopped, the patients usually recover completely from this condition.