What Are the Delayed Side Effects of Chemotherapy?

Chemotherapy is a chemical treatment that began in the 1940s with the use of nitrogen mustard to kill cancer cells. Chemo drugs or "antineoplastics" have expanded to more than 100 treatments including hormone modifiers, biological response modifiers and monoclonal antibodies.

Function

• Chemotherapy kills cancer cells but can also damage healthy ones, especially those that divide rapidly in the digestive and reproductive tracts, bone marrow, blood cells and hair follicles.

Time Frame

• Nerve damage often develops months or years after chemo treatments are completed and can cause hearing loss, personality changes, fatigue, short-term or impaired memory, lack of attention span, seizures, and changes in sensation to the feet and hands.

Considerations

• Chemotherapy can cause permanent organ damage. Although some affects are detectable during treatment, damage to reproductive organs is often unnoticed until after treatment is discontinued.

Warning

• Despite interrupted menstrual cycles during treatment, women can still become pregnant and the toxic chemotherapy drugs may cause birth defects. Women should remain on birth control while receiving treatment.

Potential

• Chemo raises the risk for developing other types of cancers later on--most commonly lymphoma, leukemia and tumors.

Prevention/Solution

• Despite more serious side effects, nausea is a large concern for many patients and can be helped naturally by taking ginger in tablet form or in the beverage ginger ale.