Jun 04 2009
Chemotherapy Protocol
Most cancer patients that have started undergoing chemotherapy would most likely be able to speak about their chemotherapy protocol and would know what that is. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it is a list of procedures and characteristics that describe the aim, the means, the potential risks and complications and the expected positive results of the medication that is included in the chemotherapy treatment offered by the doctor. This protocol is to be used as a sort of guide or reference throughout the prescribed treatment.
To get down to more details, the chemotherapy protocol involves all the case circumstances, from the pathology of the disease to the location of the tumor and its stage of evolution. It should also include indications and contraindications, it should refer to all the situations that allow or forbid its applications and it ought to make references to scientific sources that may be consulted during the treatment.
Another important part of the chemotherapy protocol comes in the form of drug information: all medication has to be described specifically. Drug information means dosage first and foremost, since the medicine concentration is influenced by the tumor size and the patient’s body weight and medical history. Other details should make reference to the day and the hour(s) when the dosage should be administered and the period of the administration. Moreover, the chemotherapy protocol should specify how the drug is to be administered, that is, the route of administration, as doctors call it (oral, intravenous, abdominal, etc). Under certain circumstances adjuvant treatment may be necessary which represents another piece of information that has to be specified in the chemotherapy protocol together with possible precautions and measures.
Finally, the chemotherapy protocol should talk about the cycles of the treatment. Such details cover the intervals that separate different cures as well as the concentration variation in the medication. The protocol should further determine how many cycles are necessary, whether the toxicity of the drugs represents a health risk, the level of recovery after every cycle of the treatment and so on.
