Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is drug treatment which is used to eradicate cancer. Different chemotherapy options are with good response rates are available. So there’s always the chance that you will respond to a new treatment. Just because you didn’t respond well to single chemotherapy plan doesn’t mean you won’t do better with another.

Chemotherapy options include single drug chemotherapy and combination chemotherapy. At the beginning of treatment, doctors recommend single drug chemotherapy in which you have to take only single chemotherapy drug. With single drug chemotherapy, it can be possible to get significant benefits with less side effects.

There are different drugs that is used single-drug chemotherapy is available which include taxotere (docetaxel), Taxol (paclitaxel), Abraxane (albumin-bound paclitaxel), Adriamycin (doxorubicin), Doxil, Xeloda (capecitabine), Navelbine (vinorelbine), Gemzar (gemcitabine). Your doctor will recommend any one of these drugs for the chemotherapy treatment.

Certain things need to consider while deciding which of the chemotherapy drugs to take. In most women, Taxotere, Taxol, or Abraxane are effective than Adriamycin in shrinking or disappearing their cancer. These drugs also cause less nausea, vomiting, and mouth sores than Adriamycin. For some women, however, Adriamycin may be effective than the taxane drugs.

According to a study, Taxotere was more effective than Taxol in treating advanced breast cancer. However, it causes more side effects. Abraxane works better than Taxol and also it has fewer side effects. When Taxotere or Taxol is given weekly in relatively low doses can be much effective with fewer side effects. Navelbine and Gemzar each can also be used to keep the tumor and its symptoms under control without causing too many side effects including less hair loss.

Another chemotherapy option is combination chemotherapy. In combination therapy, mixture of two or more chemotherapy drugs is used to treat cancer. These drugs attack all the different kinds of cells in the cancer as cancer is made up of different kinds of cells that may respond differently to any one drug. In combination chemotherapy, drugs are selected in such a way that they work well together without overlapping benefits or side effects. In combination chemotherapy, there are fewer side effects.

Your doctor or medical team may suggest one of the following combination chemotherapy:

• AT: Adriamycin (doxorubicin) and Taxotere (docetaxel)
• AC ± T: Adriamycin with cyclophosphamide, with or without Taxol (paclitaxel) or Taxotere
• CMF: cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil (5-FU)
• CEF: cyclophosphamide, epirubicin and fluorouracil
• FAC: fluorouracil, Adriamycin and cyclophosphamide
• TAC: Taxotere, Adriamycin, and Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide)
• CAF: cyclophosphamide, Adriamycin, and fluorouracil
• GET: Gemzar (gemcitabine), epirubin, and Taxol
• Avastin (bevacizumab) and either Taxol or Abraxane

While taking Adriamycin, if the cancer progresses, you can use Taxol or taxotere (taxotere is more effective than Taxol for metastatic disease). You can also consider Abraxane which was found to be easier to tolerate as it does not require pretreatment with steroids. Also combination of Taxotere with Xeloda and Taxol with Gemzar are more effective. If none of these treatments work, another option is the combination chemotherapy is applied which include Mitomycin and vincristine.