Fever during chemotherapy is quite common. The cancer itself causes fever in most cases. Fever during chemotherapy needs to be bought to the doctor’s attention immediately. About one third of cancer patients experience fever during chemotherapy because of the tumor, or the infection, the chemotherapy treatment, reaction to blood products or if the autoimmune disease develops.

Fever is generally a rise in body temperature. If the body temperature rises to 38°C or 100.4°F in a day, during chemotherapy, it calls for immediate doctor’s attention. Fever is generally caused if the body is affected by infection and if the defense to fight the infection is down. A thorough medical checkup needs to be done by the doctor if patients have high temperature during chemotherapy. BCG chemotherapy is an effective type of chemotherapy that is mainly used for treating bladder cancer.

 Apart from fever, chills, shivering, decrease in the body’s temperature is also experienced during chemotherapy. Chills are common among patients who are prescribed with immunotherapy drugs such as interferon, tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and interleukin-2. The chills do not last for more than 15 minutes and gradually lessen after a week or two weeks treatment.

 Patients who experience fever during chemotherapy are examined thoroughly by the doctors to check if the white blood count is low or normal. The condition of low white cell count is called neutropenia. Talking about neutropenia and chemotherapy, most of the neutropenic patients, who have fever, need to be diagnosed properly as they have an infection. The proper diagnoses and cure could prove life saving for the patients. On the other hand, it is difficult to determine the cause of fever among patients with normal white blood cell counts.

It is also important that patients do not take Aspirin or paracetamol if they experience high temperature during chemotherapy. Aspirin or paracetamol would bring the body temperature down and only give false assurance. Doctors will not be in a position to detect the cause of fever and this would further delay the process. Antibiotics can be taken for headaches and mild body pain.

 The most common cancers that trigger fever among patients are liver cancer, kidney cancer, Hodgkin lymphoma, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

After the cause of fever is known, doctors could prescribe a few medications to deal with the fever. A single drug or antibiotics in combination are prescribed if patients are detected with neutropenia. Patients who do not show a low white blood count are generally prescribed anti-inflammatory drugs. Apart from this, if the fever is generated because of tumor, corticosteroid has proved effective.

 Patients experiencing chills during chemotherapy, a hot water bottle or heating pad could be helpful to minimize the chills, unless you have a skin condition. Extra blankets can also be used when the fever hits. Medicines such as meperidine, morphine, or dilaudid can be prescribed by your medical team to relieve the symptoms of chills.

 Apart from this the chemotherapy drugs like Bacillus Calmette-Guérin, Carboplatin, Bleomycin, Carmustine, Cisplatin are a few of the drugs prescribed to bring fever down among the patients.