Colon Cancer Chemotherapy: What It Is All About
When colon cancer reaches its later stages, treatment like colon cancer chemotherapy is a must if only to prevent the further spread of the cancerous cells to other healthy systems of the body and of course to cut short its progression from one stage to the next stage.
Early diagnosis may well save the need for major treatment. Unfortunately treatment for colon cancer is often too late as its symptoms can mask themselves into usual problems that people often encounter. In fact, people with the beginnings of a colon cancer are frequently initially diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, not knowing that it is part of a bigger problem.
Most common treatment options
Chemotherapy is one of the most common treatments for cancer. In colon cancer, it is used from the third stage until the terminal stage. Chemotherapy is a process by which drugs are injected into the body to kill the cancerous cells.
Chemotherapy can be given in different ways. It can be given intravenously through injection or through a pump. Some are also given chemotherapy drugs in pill form. There are of course different doses depending on the gravity of the cancer.
Below are some of the kinds of chemotherapy that are being given in people who have colon cancer.
Primary Chemotherapy is given to a patient who has more advanced problems because it has already spread to the other parts of the body. This stage of colon cancer cannot be eliminated by mere surgery. Thus, chemotherapy is done as a final resort as it can shrink tumor nodules, make symptoms lessen and sometimes in lucky cases prolong the lifespan of the patient.
Adjuvant chemotherapy is the kind of chemotherapy that is given after a surgery. This is because sometimes, surgery will not be able to remove all the cancerous cells that a patient has. These are often those that have been metastasized or those that have already spread to the liver of the patient.
Neoadjuvant as the name suggests is also done in tandem with surgery but unlike the adjuvant kind, this is given before the surgery. This is done by the doctors to shrink the size of the tumor so that it will be easier to remove the tumor. Shrinking the tumor will also help lessen the possible complications that may occur. Often, this kind of chemotherapy is done with radiation therapy in order for it to be more effective.
Side effects of chemotherapy
Chemotherapy does not only kill the cancerous cells alone. It can also kill some of the healthy cells in the body such as the lining in the mouth, hair, and even the gastro-intestinal tract, which is pretty unfortunate for patients who already have problems in the area such as colon cancer patients.
This results to the appearance of mouth sores, some rashes in the hands and the feet and of course diarrhea. Hair loss is very common because of the effect that the drugs have on the follicles but in colon cancer chemotherapy, this is not so as the drugs used are different. Still, patients that undergo chemotherapy can suffer from thinning hair.
Chemotherapy as cure for common cancer can result to the loss of appetite as well as nausea and frequent vomiting. It can also affect the bone marrow, leading to increased risk for infection because of low white blood cells, rapid bruising or bleeding as a result of anemia and fatigue.