Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Understanding Chemotherapy Medicines For Cancer - LR

By Lee Reid

Once a patient is diagnosed with cancer, it is required that the doctor recommend him/her the appropriate types and dosages of cancer chemotherapy drugs. Health care providers should not overlook the importance of treatment transparency and the necessity for good communication with the person under medication.

The doctor-patient relationship is almost as important nowadays as the suggested cancer chemotherapy is because offering a good treatment without carefully explaining the steps to follow and the potential side effects that may appear along the way may completely discourage the patient. The morale of the individual and the feeling that someone is closely advising and supervising him/her are very important in handling such a burden of an illness.

Cancer chemotherapy was first used in the 1940s when doctors prescribed mostly nitrogen mustards and folic acid as antagonist drugs. Since more and more patients turned up to suffer from the same condition, that is cancer, cancer chemotherapy has gradually turned into an industry registering huge success on the market through the wide variety of drugs that it produces. Even though progress has marked the seven decades since the pioneer cancer treatments, the basic principles that shaped cancer chemotherapy have remained the same.

On certain occasions cancer chemotherapy proves insufficient in the fight against the tumor growth. As a result, the combined chemotherapy regimen may not be sufficient and the doctor may recommend surgery. This procedure is not always one hundred percent certain in removing entirely the tumor and there are still chances that the cancerous cells may reoccur. So doctors and researchers have come up with an adjuvant cancer chemotherapy treatment that relies on drugs meant to prevent the recurrence of cancer and clear away any signs of cancer left after removing the tumor. This cancer chemotherapy adjuvant seems to have really lengthened the life of many patients suffering from colon cancer.

Chemotherapy means drugs that have various purposes and patients should learn what types of drugs they are using and what risks or side effects these drugs pose. The categories in which chemical drugs fall are pretty numerous but there are lots of sources to be consulted either under the form of books in libraries or text posted on Internet sites. Whichever the medium of information, keep in mind the fact that the benefits and the risks brought about by a certain medication have to be carefully investigated and analyzed in the context of a patient's medical history.

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