Preoperative Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is a mode of treatment to treat various kinds of cancer. The drugs or chemicals that are used to destroy these cancerous cells and also control the rapid growth of these cells have their own side effects. The mode of treatment for cancer includes both preoperative as well as postoperative chemotherapy, combination drug chemotherapy as well as single drug chemotherapy.
In case of single drug chemotherapy the drug used is one while in combination drug chemotherapy the use of drugs are two or more than two drugs. Combination drug chemotherapy has shown to give better results than single drug chemotherapy.
What is preoperative chemotherapy?
In this mode of cancer treatment the patient is administered the drug before going in for surgery or radical radiotherapy. This mode of treatment shrinks the tumour thus making surgery quite easy and also increasing the chances of survival. This mode of treatment is usually recommended for patients who are going to undergo surgery for the removal of the tumour thus reducing the chances of any unwarranted complication during surgery. Preoperative chemotherapy is often recommended to patients who are in the advance stages of breast cancer as well as colorectal cancer. Cisplatin, 5-FU and bleomycin are used to treat head and neck cancer in the preoperative modes.
Here this mode of treatment is mainly for patients who have a bulky and advanced cervical cancer. Drugs used here are ifosfamide, cisplatin and paclitaxel and is followed up by surgery and sometimes even radiotherapy. This mode of treatment gives a far better result in comparison to adjuvant chemotherapy.
Preoperative chemotherapy is also preferred by patients in their advanced stages of ovarian cancer, as this mode of treatment helps giving those better chances of survival as well as a quality life when surgery follows this mode of treatment. This mode of treatment does not guarantee reoccurrence of cancer.
All the drugs used in chemotherapy are toxic by nature and the same rule applies to drugs used in preoperative chemotherapy. These chemotherapy drugs are known not only to destroy these cancerous cells but also damage the healthy cells surrounding them. Side effects that are associated with chemotherapy are vomiting, memory loss, nausea, weight loss, loss of appetite, hair loss, etc these side effects are temporary and disappear after the completion of the treatment cycle. But then there are few side effects though rare do have long term side effects like these toxic drugs are known to affect the proper functioning of the heart, lungs, liver, intestine and even the reproductive organs. The side effects vary from patient to patient, also according to the stage of cancer and the overall health of the patient and the age.
It has been proved that preoperative chemotherapy has increased the chances of survival when surgery follows this mode of treatment and the life of the patient is much better than in the regular mode of chemotherapy. This mode of treatment is also termed as neo-adjuvant chemotherapy or pre-surgical mode of treatment and is recommended for better chances of survival as well as to reduce the morbidity of the patient.