Whats the longest someone can be on chemo?

How long can you live on chemo?

For most cancers where palliative chemotherapy is used, this number ranges from 3-12 months. The longer the response, the longer you can expect to live.

Can you have chemo continuously?

Some chemotherapy treatments take minutes or hours. Others are given over several days or weeks. This is called continuous infusion chemotherapy. You do not need to stay at the hospital or clinic for continuous infusion.

How many courses of chemo can a person have?

You may need four to eight cycles to treat your cancer. A series of cycles is called a course. Your course can take 3 to 6 months to complete. And you may need more than one course of chemo to beat the cancer.

What is the next treatment after chemotherapy?

Maintenance therapy is the ongoing treatment of cancer with medication after the cancer has responded to the first recommended treatment. Maintenance therapy, sometimes called continuous therapy, is used for the following reasons: To prevent the cancer's return.

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Why would chemotherapy be stopped?

Chemotherapy breaks

If your blood cell levels are too low, the doctors will have to put off your next treatment until the levels have recovered. This may be called a chemotherapy break. This doesn't matter too much. It shouldn't make the treatment any less effective.

What happens if chemo doesnt work?

If cancer does not respond to chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or other treatments, palliative care is still an option. A person can receive palliative care with other treatments or on its own. The aim is to enhance the quality of life.

What are the signs that chemo is working?

When should chemo be stopped?

Can chemo speed up death?

In fact, chemotherapy doesn't cause death but it causes side effects on the patients who got an infection because of the low level of white blood cell count. Thanate Dejsakdipon, MD., an oncologist of Vejthani Hospital explained that chemotherapy is a medical treatment that is used to treat many types of cancer.

Does chemo shorten life expectancy?

Chemotherapy alone had an 11-year shorter life expectancy versus a 6-year shorter one when diagnosed in the 1990s. Radiotherapy alone had a 21-year shorter conditional life expectancy versus an 18-year one when diagnosed in the 1990s.

How can doctors tell how long you have to live?

There are numerous measures – such as medical tests, physical exams and the patient's history – that can also be used to produce a statistical likelihood of surviving a specific length of time.

When do oncologists stop treatment?

You may reach a point when there are no more effective cancer treatments for you. This is when you should seek hospice care, according to the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). You may have reached that point if: Your doctor does not think you will live for more than six months.

What are the signs that chemo is not working?

What is the most life threatening side effect of chemotherapy?

Shortness of breath or trouble breathing (If you're having trouble breathing call 911 first.)

What makes chemo patients feel better?

Decaffeinated tea, juices and milk can also help. If you're having trouble consuming enough liquids or staying hydrated, talk to your care team. Chemotherapy can cause nausea and appetite loss, so it's important to eat when you can to avoid becoming malnourished.

How many rounds of chemo is normal?

During a course of treatment, you usually have around 4 to 8 cycles of treatment. A cycle is the time between one round of treatment until the start of the next. After each round of treatment you have a break, to allow your body to recover.

Can you be too weak for chemo?

Your oncologist may recommend avoiding chemotherapy if your body is not healthy enough to withstand chemotherapy or if there is a more effective treatment available.

Do you get weaker with each chemo treatment?

The effects of chemo are cumulative. They get worse with each cycle. My doctors warned me: Each infusion will get harder. Each cycle, expect to feel weaker.

What happens if chemo doesn't shrink tumors?

If the first set of chemo drugs doesn't shrink the tumor, your doctor will know that other drugs are needed. It should also kill any cancer cells that might have spread but can't be seen by the naked eye or on imaging tests. Just like adjuvant chemo, neoadjuvant chemo can lower the risk of breast cancer coming back.

How many times can you have chemo?

When there is visible disease, the length of chemotherapy treatment will depend upon the response of the disease to therapy. If the disease disappears completely, chemotherapy may continue for 1-2 cycles beyond this observation to maximize the chance of having attacked all microscopic disease.

Which is harder on the body chemo or radiation?

What hospice does not tell you?

Hospice care does not include curative treatment. The goal of hospice care is to provide comfort and support rather than to cure the disease. Hospice may not include medications you have grown accustomed to taking, such as chemotherapy or other medical supplements.

Will my oncologist tell me how long I have to live?

In some cases, oncologists fail to tell patients how long they have to live. In others, patients are clearly told their prognosis, but are too overwhelmed to absorb the information.