Chemotherapy Dose
Oncologists’ often employs high doses of chemotherapy to protect million of cancer patients and as a result most of them are alive even now. The basic idea behind using the high dose of chemotherapy is to kill maximum possible cancer cells without hurting the patient with the use of highly effect chemo or chemo combination medicines in as high doses as practical. Nevertheless, high doses of chemotherapy don’t succeed all time and the rate of success is just 55%. 45 % of patients ultimately succumb to cancer and dies. It happens because in those cases, chemo or chemo combination medicines fail to affect cancer as it becomes almost chemo-resistant. Doctors and surgeon thus try to find a different way to reduce the cancer cells using chemotherapy in a different manner. In place of giving high doses of chemo or chemo combinations, doctors prefer to give sequential low doses of chemotherapy in cases where the high doses of chemotherapy fails to remain a workable option.
Some people may object that if the cancer cells have become resistant to high doses of chemotherapy, how will the low doses of chemo or chemo-combinations will affect the same chemo-resistant cancer cells? The answer is not very simple, but it is sufficiently justified. The actual process of sequential low doses of chemotherapy is not meant to affect the cancer cells by themselves, rather it is meant to attack on the capillaries that directly nourish the cancer cells or tumours. Slowly but certainly, chemo or chemo combinations start killing or destructing these capillaries on which the life and growth of these tumours or cancer cells depend. As these capillaries start suffering depletion, cancer cells or tumours start suffering weakness. In such situation, they may also get affected with chemo or chemo combinations. Thus, sequential low doses of chemotherapy acts in two ways, it reduces the capillaries which strengthen the cancer cells and then it gradually starts killing the cancer cells directly and many cancer cells or tumour parts suffers because of weak capillaries. Applying sequential low doses chemotherapy is a completely new approach of using chemotherapy to reduce and remove dangers from cancer cells and tumours.
Low doses of chemotherapy offer more benefits for the patients. There are very minimal or no side effects of low doses of chemotherapy. Low chemotherapy affects no toxicity on white blood cells and patients also do not suffer nausea or vomiting problems.
Furthermore, high or low doses of chemotherapy even if they act, may not completely remove the cancer cells or tumours because the capillaries remain alive. Because of this, either the tumours that had vanished completely because of high or low doses of chemotherapy may return back and kill the patient. On the other hand sequential low doses of chemotherapy along with addition of some antiangiogenic drugs to the chemotherapy regimen can remove the cancer tumours completely so that they may never occur again. Furthermore, changing the chemotherapy agents within a period of every 2-3 weeks may also help in removing the tumours and cancer cells completely.