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Deadly Effects of Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy involves treatment with powerful drugs designed to kill rapidly growing cancer cells. It has a dizzying array of side effects, some of which are potentially deadly. However, many cancer patients credit chemo with helping them survive their bouts with the disease. Nevertheless, it is important that you know in advance the potential dangers of this powerful mode of treatment.

  1. Powerful Medicine

    • Any chemicals that are toxic enough to kill cancer cells can have a devastating effect on the rest of the body as well. If you have a family member or close friend who has undergone chemotherapy, you probably already have first-hand knowledge of that. Chemotherapy involves the use of a wide array of drugs to target cancer cells, so the range of side effects that you are likely to experience depends very much on the specific chemicals being used. Also a factor is the means by which the chemotherapy is administered, which can be by mouth, injection or intravenously.

    Side Effects

    • The most common side effects of chemotherapy include nausea, hair loss, pain, vomiting and profound fatigue, according to MedlinePlus, a joint initiative of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. These side effects occur as the chemotherapy drugs target and kill cancer cells and in the process damage healthy cells as well. Chemotherapy.com, a website maintained by Amgen, a major international biotechnology company, says the side effects of chemo "may cause inconvenience, discomfort and even death."

    Impact on Blood Cells

    • Chemotherapy can have an damaging effect on the body's blood cells, leading to such conditions as neutropenia, a dangerous reduction in the body's white blood cells, which play a big role in fighting infection; anemia, a lowering of the red blood cell count; and thrombocytopenia, a dangerously low blood platelets count. This effect on blood cells can, in turn, open the door to opportunistic infections that may strike when the body is in such a weakened state that it cannot fight back.

    Chemotherapy-Induced Leukemia

    • Chemotherapy's side effects on blood cells has sometimes led to successful treatment of one cancer malignancy but also to the emergence of a new cancer, leukemia. Researchers at the Cancer Center of the University of California, Davis, documented instances of this phenomenon in an article published in the Nov. 25, 2005, issue of the journal Leukemia. The article told of patients who had developed leukemia after treatment with topoisomerase II inhibitors, which are among the most widely used and successful chemotherapy drugs. On the bright side, the article suggested that there may be steps that can be taken to prevent this potentially deadly side effect.

    Fatal Reactions

    • Another report, this one from Northwestern University's Research on Adverse Drug Events and Reports, or RADAR program, cited instances of potentially fatal hypersensitivity to Cremophor-based paclitaxel, a solvent-administered taxane chemotherapy drug. The RADAR panel studied 287 cases between 1997 and 2007 in which patients had a violent allergic reaction to this drug; 109 cases, or 38 percent, ultimately ended in the death of the patient.

    Tough Decisions

    • Cancer patients who are faced with tough decisions about what specific treatments they want to undergo should know that chemotherapy has established an impressive record of success in shrinking life-threatening malignancies. However, patients cannot overlook the fact that this mode of treatment also causes a broad variety of side effects, some very debilitating and some that potentially are life-threatening.

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