COMPLETE Guide For Chemotherapy Effects and It's Treatment

FAC chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is a mode of treatment that helps control, eradicate the cancerous cells that spread in the body. Chemotherapy is used to treat almost all kinds of cancer. FAC is yet another mode of treatment for positive as well as negative node breast cancer. Chemotherapy though known to help control and eradicate the rapid growth of cancerous cells they are also known to harm the normal healthy cells that surround these cancerous cells thus damaging the healthy cells too.

Here the drugs used to treat node-negative as well as node-positive breast cancer are a combination of three drugs which has proved its effectiveness in controlling breast cancer. The three chemical drugs used are Adriamycin or doxorubicin, fluorouracil (5FU) and cyclophosphamide.

FAC chemotherapy drugs are known to attack the cancerous cells in a different way as the 5FU is a formation of molecules that has a slightly different molecular structure than the of the normal cells. This drug helps stop the functioning of the cancerous cells thus slowly killing them.

Adriamycin on the other hand works at blocking the DNA cell production and at the same time it helps the healthy cells in its repairing process though the impact of this drug is more on the cancerous cells than that of the normal healthy cells but then it helps destroy the cancerous cells by preventing its rapid replication. Cyclophosphamide on the other hand works at getting attached to the cell production of DNA thus preventing further replication on its own.

This mode of treatment varies as the drugs used here functions differently compared to the drugs used to treat various kinds of cancer. Adriamycin and fluorouracil can be administered together intravenously or into the arm or even the hand on day one and day eight. Cyclophosphamide on the other hand can be taken orally for a period of fourteen days. The treatment cycle goes on for about four to five months with each treatment cycle lasting for about a month.

Yet another mode of administering FAC chemotherapy is to inject all the three drugs i.e. adriamycin, cyclophosphamide and flurouracil simultaneously in your hand or arm via drip. Here each treatment cycle is repeated every third week for about 4-6 times thus making the treatment cycle last for about two to three months.

All chemotherapy drugs have their own side effects and the same stands true even for treating node-negative and node-positive breast cancer. The side effects that are associated with FAC mode of chemotherapy are vomiting, loss of memory, fatigue, hair loss, nausea, diarrhoea, heart related problems, sore mouth and throat, bladder irritation, reproductive related problems. Bleeding, bruising and even sun burns.

The response and the side effects associated with FAC chemotherapy varies from patient to patient as some have very few side effects while some show serious side effects. In case you develop any other symptoms or side effects other than these you need to consult your doctor, most of these side effects disappear after the completion of the treatment cycle but then some do have serious and permanent side effects.