Chemotherapy
Childhood exposure to chemo, radiation does not up birth defects in offspring
A large, retrospective study shows that children of childhood cancer survivors who received prior treatment involving radiation to testes or ovaries and/or chemotherapy with alkylating agents do not have an increased risk for birth defects compared to …
Acupuncture may help cancer treatment pain
Acupuncture may help ease the severe nerve pain associated with certain cancer drugs, suggests a small preliminary study published in Acupuncture in Medicine.
Cancer patients treated with taxanes, vinca alkaloids, or platinum compounds can develop a c…
A cluster bomb for cancer care
Chemotherapy, while an effective cancer treatment, also brings debilitating side effects such as nausea, liver toxicity and a battered immune system.
Now, a new way to deliver this life-saving therapy to cancer patients ― getting str…
Technique Could Spare Half of Women From Breast Cancer Chemotherapy
Oncologists are testing a new technique called gene expression profiling that subtypes each breast cancer tumor by its genetic defects so that doctors can tailor their treatment to inhibit that particular tumor. The researchers believe the technique could spare millions of women from needlessly receiving toxic chemotherapy, and they are leading a national clinical trial to study gene profiling. “Currently, we have no predictive model to determine who will respond to hormonal therapies and who won’t, so we prescribe chemotherapy as a backup measure to ensure the cancer’s demise,” said Matthew Ellis, M.D., Ph.D., director of the breast cancer program at Duke. “This one-treatment-fits-all approach leads to a huge amount of over treatment, with up to 50 percent of women unnecessarily receiving chemotherapy.”