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| Main Critical Side Effects Associated with Chemotherapy Used in Cancer
Treatment |
| Bassam Abdul Rasool Hassan |
| Clinical Pharmacy Discipline, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Sains Malaysia, 11800, Minden, Penang, Malaysia |
| *Corresponding author: |
Bassam Abdul Rasool Hassan
Clinical Pharmacy
Discipline, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences
University of Sains Malaysia, 11800,
Minden, Penang, Malaysia
Tel: +6-016-423-0950
E-mail: bassamsunny@yahoo.com |
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| Received June 28, 2012; Accepted July 04, 2012; Published July 06, 2012 |
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| Citation: Rasool Hassan BA (2012) Main Critical Side Effects Associated with
Chemotherapy Used in Cancer Treatment. Pharmaceut Anal Acta 3:e1113.
doi:10.4172/2153-2435.1000e113 |
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| Copyright: © 2012 Rasool Hassan BA. This is an open-access article distributed
under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original author and source are credited. |
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| Introduction |
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| Cancer has become a major killer in the world which almost
surpasses the cardiovascular diseases and will become the main lethal
cause in this century. Although the global war against cancer leads to
remarkable gain in understanding the main molecular mechanism for
the cancer cell, this progress is still considered as slow and not enough
especially in case of treatment of common solid tumor in adults.
Besides that there are so many types of serious side effects caused by
the tumor itself be it solid cancer or hematological cancer. Moreover
these side effects are not only caused by cancer itself but also from the
chemotherapy treatment which is used for it and the most critical side
effects are associated with the chemotherapy treatment more than the
cancer disease. Therefore it became an obligate matter for all clinicians
to be aware of these chemotherapy side effects. |
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| Chemotherapy Background |
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| Chemotherapy was developed and used since the Word War I
from the chemical weapon program of the United State of America
(USA), since that era it became one of the most important treatment
for cancer disease. The main mechanism for its working is by
attaching and destroying the cancer cells which are characterized by
their high multiplication and growth speed [1,2]. Even though when
comparing chemotherapy with other types of treatments, it still remain
potentially high risk with many side effects which are difficult to
manage. Chemotherapy requiresthe involvement of various clinical
professionals during its various stages of administration and enormous
patient health care is needed to overcome its side effects [1,3]. |
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| Chemotherapy Side Effects |
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| The goal of chemotherapy is to be as effective as possible with
tolerable side effects, since the dose of chemotherapy will be toxic
to the cancer cells as well as to the normal cells. A proportion of the
cancer patients suffer from only mild side effects whereas others may
suffer from serious side effects. Occurrence of specific side effects will
vary according to the chemotherapy or medications used. The most
common side effects experienced are nausea and vomiting, anemia,
hair loss, bleeding (thrombocytopenia), hyperuricemia, bone marrow
depression, alopecia and mucositis. So different parameters must be
taken into consideration to prevent, reduce and overcome these side
effects [3-5]. |
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| Classifications of Chemotherapy Side Effects |
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| The side effects commonly associated with chemotherapy treatment
are classified as: |
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| 1. Acute, which develop within 24 hours after chemotherapy
administration. |
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| 2. Delayed, which develop after 24 hours and up to 6 to 8 weeks
after chemotherapy treatment. |
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| 3. Short term, combination of both acute and delayed effect. |
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| 4. Late/ long term, which develop after months or years of
chemotherapy treatment. |
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| 5. Expected, which developed among 75% of the patients. |
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| 6. Common, occurred in 25%-75% of the patients. |
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| 7. Uncommon, happened is less than 15% of the patients. |
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| 8. Rare, occur in only 5% of the patients. |
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| 9. Very rare, occur with less than 1% of the patients [3-5]. |
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| Conclusion |
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| Therefore it is an obligate matter for all clinicians to follow up all
the cancer patients who receive chemotherapy in order to prevent
or palliate any of these side effects which may appear. Moreover it is
important to focus on research within this field in order to detect the
proper ways which can help to overcome these side effects. |
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| References |
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- Brighton D, Miriam W (2005) The Royal Marsden Hospital Handbook of Cancer Chemotherapy. London: Elsevier/Churchill Livingstone
- Kelland LR (2005) Cancer cell biology, drug action and resistance. (edn), The Royal Marsden Hospital Handbook of Cancer Chemotherapy. London: Elsevier/Churchill Livingstone.
- Rizzo T, Cloos R (2002) Chemotherapy. In thackery, (edn) The gale encyclopedia of cancer detroit, gale group.
- Abrams AC (2001) Drugs used in oncologic disorders. Clinical Drug Therapy. (36thedn), Ontario: Canadian Pharmacists Association.
- Koda-kimble lYY, Wayne A, Kradjan, BJG, Brain KA, Robin lC (2002) Applied therapeutics the Clinical use of drugs. In Troy D (Edn) Hand book of applied therapeutics. Philadelphia: Williams & Wilkins.
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