When to Stop Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is a mode of treatment that helps in eradicating the cancerous cells in the body, chemotherapy helps treat almost all kinds of cancer including breast cancer, lung cancer etc. Chemotherapy drugs are administered in different ways like they are injected can be taken orally, intravenous etc. When the drugs are injected they travel through the blood stream and destroy the cancerous cells that are spread throughout the body. Chemotherapy treatment eradicates the cancerous cells or sometimes they slow down the rapid growth of the cancer cells.
In spite of undergoing chemotherapy there are times when the need arises to stop the treatment and there are reasons for it too. The mode of chemotherapy treatment depends upon a number of factors like the stage of cancer, type of cancer, patient’s health and the prognosis. The effectiveness of the treatment depends upon the side effects such as nausea, fatigue, vomiting, loss of hair, memory loss, sickness, tiredness etc.
Sometimes age factor of the patient is also considered when the need arises to stop chemotherapy treatment. Due to age older people cannot tolerate the side effects of chemotherapy and taking this into consideration sometimes doctors decide to stop chemotherapy treatment and feel that they can live life as comfortable as possible without chemotherapy.
Your prognosis is important as this helps the doctors choose the treatment and sometimes it becomes difficult to give an appropriate prognosis therefore it becomes necessary for both you and the doctor to take a second opinion so that if need arises the treatment can be either extended or changed.
Sometimes when chemotherapy treatment does not give required results doctors advice that the treatment needs to be discontinued. You also need to keep the side effects in mind if you want to continue with the treatment as chemotherapy may not help you live a quality life but the prolonged use of these toxic drugs may lead to more side effects and will lower your life span too.
Palliative care or care to reduce the suffering depends upon the symptoms that are associated with cancer and various other factors like the chemotherapy treatment and your condition. When it is decided that you need to take palliative care then the doctor see that you get all the comforts and the first thing that is taken into consideration is to help you get some relief from the side effects of vomiting, nausea, fever, loss of appetite etc. You should make it a point and describe all your daily symptoms to your doctor so that he will see to it that you get the utmost relief from your pains and sufferings. Sometimes it has also been noticed that palliative care not only helps reduce the sufferings but along with the treatment it also helps prolong your life.
The decision of stopping chemotherapy is taken only when the doctor feels that this mode of treatment will not benefit you and the best thing is instead of making you face the bombardment of these toxic drugs the best thing is to see that you get some relief from the side effects that have been caused due to these toxic drugs.