A large percentage of women experience breast cancer every year. This is one of the most common diseases that are being seen with women lately. One treatment that is given to such patients is chemotherapy, which is a treatment given to kill cancer cells throughout the body before surgery or radiation to shrink the tumour and then kill any cancer cells left behind. But, doctors are at odds over whether such female patients should be given chemotherapy treatment or not. Many oncologists are shunning chemotherapy and consider it risky and ineffective. While traditionally, majority of women were given chemotherapy treatment along with surgery and radiation, oncologists are now moving away from it. Why? Let us take a look.
Women starting chemotherapy often expect unpleasant side effects like hair loss and nausea. Patients experience a good amount of fever, infection, and dehydration, along with having a low white blood cell or platelet count. Other side effects include vomiting, fatigue, and mouth sores. What causes these side effects? Chemotherapy, while being extremely effective against rapidly growing cancer cells, also affects healthy cells and divides them quickly, which causes side effects. However, physicians have and are continually working to prevent some of these most common side effects. Also, doctors are administering colony stimulating factors, wherein the injections boost the supply of the patients’ infection-fighting white blood cells.
However, there are many advantages to this treatment too. Chemotherapy shrinks the cancer and slows down its growth, helping patients to live longer and feel better. In fact, in certain patients, chemotherapy may shrink the cancer enough to make an after surgery remove the cancer entirely. In such cases, the chances of the cancer coming back are significantly reduced. This is why patients should weigh the potential benefits and risks of chemotherapy before deciding upon what they must do. Dr. Michael Hassett, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, also says, “Women should be aware that chemotherapy can cause side effects, but should not make a decision regarding whether or not to receive chemotherapy solely based on these results.”
Obviously, even if you go in for chemotherapy, you must be well aware of all the possible side effects that you may encounter. However, in any case, doctors are supportive and will always be by the patient’s side when they undergo chemotherapy and other such treatments, because they know and understand what the disease is about, and how much the patient needs to suffer with it.
Chemotherapy is only a small dot in the vast field of science. There is so much more in the field to know and learn about. One can never know everything about science in their entire lifetime. This is why there are all kinds of specialists for different fields. But, to make researches on varied ailments, illnesses, and treatments, there are specialized researchers hired. You can also become a researcher by gaining knowledge about the same from a reputed institution like Avigna Clinical Research Institute that offers courses of PG diploma clinical research in Bangalore.
