TC Chemotherapy
What exactly do you mean by Chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy is a mode of treating different kinds of cancers. This mode of treatment uses one or more combination of drugs or chemicals to slow down the process of the tumours’ or helps stop the growth of these cancerous cells in the body.
What is TC Chemotherapy?
TC Chemotherapy is used to treat patients having detected with breast cancer who have undergone breast surgery. Here the use of two different drugs are used namely Taxotere and Cyclophosphamide, this drug has been approved by the FDA and has shown positive results thus increasing the chances of survival of the affected patient especially if breast cancer is detected in the initial stages.
This mode of treatment got the approval from the FDA in 2004 when it was used to treat women who were tested node-positive. Taxotere was found effective when it was added to FEC chemotherapy which should great improvement not only in stopping the growth of the cancerous cells but also reduced to risk of recurrence of breast cancer thus giving new hope to women and increasing their chances of survival. FEC chemotherapy is a combination of epirubicin, 5-fluorouracil and cyclophoshamide to which taxotere is added to give more effective results.
It is known that when Taxotere and Cyclophoshamide are jointly used to treat breast cancer the benefits are more not only in terms of survival but also in terms of side effects. Initially Adriamycin or doxorubicin along with cyclophosphamide (AC Chemotherapy) was used to treat breast cancer but then it was found that Adriamycin caused various heart problems while in case of Taxotere no such side effects have been found. Due to this reason the use of Adriamycin was discontinued and Taxotere came to be used.
As mentioned above the use of TC Chemotherapy is done only after the patient has undergone surgery especially in the initial stages of breast cancer. This mode of treatment is very popular today not because of its low rate of side effects but also because it has proved that the chances of survival increases as the chances of recurrence of cancer are greatly diminished. Even in case of TC Chemotherapy the patient is not treated continuously, there is a rest period between each cycle giving the patient sufficient time to recover from any side effects thus increasing the body’s immunity.
All Chemotherapy drugs or all the chemicals used in chemotherapy are toxins by nature and they not only destroy the cancerous cells but also destroy those normal cells found around the affected cells. The side effects are not long lasting and the symptoms that can be easily identified when the patient is undergoing chemotherapy is loss of memory, vomiting, bleeding, nausea, hair fall, eyes and mouth sores, decrease in the blood count and weakening the immunity system of the body.
The side effects vary from person to person depending upon the condition. The side effects as mentioned above are temporary and are known to disappear ones the treatment is over.