Folfox Chemotherapy

A chemotherapy where a combination of drugs is used to treat colon cancer is known as folfox chemotherapy. Drugs like Folinic Acid, Oxaliplatin and Fluorouracil are used in this mode of treatment. The combinations of these drugs are used to destroy cancer cells in the body. In rare cases the only side effect found in this mode of treatment is that you may suffer from very high temperature.

The treatment involves a number of cycles and each cycle lasts for about two weeks. Mode of treatment is intravenous wherein the help of cannula a short tube is inserted into the vein at the beginning of each cycle.

Folfox chemotherapy

1st Day folinic acid and oxaliplatin are injected into the body by way of drips, this whole process of injecting these two drugs take about 2 hours. 5FU is then injected into the body through the central line which takes about 22 hours.

2nd Day folinic acid is administered into the body even this process lasts for two hours after this 5FU is injected into the body through the central line.

3rd Day onwards until the 14 th day no drugs are administered but then from the 15 th day onwards the above mentioned cycle is repeated.

Administration of the drug 5FU can be done even at your own residence if you have the facility of a central line, you can also take this treatment if you have the facility by which you can have the infusion with the help of a pump. You should always go back to the hospital to get your infusion changed.

You can always get the drip tube disconnected after the 2 nd day as there is no treatment till the 14 th day.

Side effects

Side effects can either be increased or decreased depending upon the combination of the drugs that are used. Though the side effects that are commonly found in patients who are undergoing Folfox chemotherapy treatment is that the patient feels fatigue after every cycle and this effect lasts till the completion of all the cycles and it has been found that it takes almost six months before the patient recovers fully.

Oxiplatin has found to have some side effects associated with it. The patient feels numbness in his or her toes almost every time that the drug is administered. Though this feeling of numbness does not come immediately, the patient feels sick most of the time. Uses of anti-sickness drugs are prescribed by doctors. This side effect is seen as the bone marrow looses its ability to function properly for a short time period. At this juncture the body becomes more susceptible to other infections as the white blood cells count drops down. Infections like cold, headaches, cough, muscle ache, difficulty in passing urine, sore throat etc are commonly seen due to the drop of white blood cells in the body. Many a time's patients have complained about breathlessness because of the decrease of the red blood cells in the body which leads to anemia. To treat anemia patients need to under go blood transfusion. Other than the usual side effects that are seen in the treatment of cancer no other serious side effects have been noticed so far.