Adjuvant chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is often used alongside surgery to treat cancer. If your cancer treatment plan includes adjuvant chemotherapy or neoadjuvant chemotherapy, that means you will be receiving both Chemotherapy is the use of powerful drugs to kill or slow the growth of cancer cells. It is frequently administered before or after surgery to improve results. The different terms indicate the order in which you will get these treatments: • Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is delivered before surgery with the goal of shrinking a tumor or stopping the spread of cancer to make surgery less invasive and more effective. • Adjuvant chemotherapy is administered after surgery to kill any remaining cancer cells with the goal of reducing the chances of recurrence. Whether or not your doctor recommends chemotherapy before or after surgery, depends on several factors, including: • Cancer type and stage • Whether or not the cancer has spread to lymph nodes • The goal of treatment, whether it is to rid your body of cancer, slow the cancer’s growth and progression, or ease the symptoms of your cancer • How well your body is likely to tolerate multiple treatments Adjuvant chemotherapy and neoadjuvant chemotherapy are frequently used in the treatment of breast, colon, lung, bladder, and prostate cancers. For example, a woman with invasive breast cancer or a very large tumor may undergo neoadjuvant chemotherapy to shrink a tumor before breast surgery so a lumpectomy (surgery to remove only the cancer and surrou...

Published: February 13, 2019 Chemotherapy has been traditionally used as an “adjuvant” treatment in many patients with cancer — administered after surgery to kill microscopic tumor cells that remain in the body after surgical removal of the tumor. More recently, it has also come to be used in a “neoadjuvant” setting — to shrink tumors before they are surgically removed. What is the main benefit of neoadjuvant chemotherapy? In some cases, neoadjuvant chemotherapy can make for better surgical options for a patient: It can turn an inoperable cancer into a treatable one by decreasing its size. In others, it can allow patients to become eligible for less-extensive forms of surgery than they otherwise might have required. For instance, some women with breast cancer who would have needed a mastectomy to remove a large tumor might be candidates for a less invasive “lumpectomy” if the tumor can be shrunk with chemotherapy. Patients with an advanced form of laryngeal cancer, to take another example, can often preserve their larynx if they’re treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by radiation therapy, and the same may be true for patients with bladder cancer. Chemotherapy pills. Other types of cancer therapy besides chemotherapy can be used in the neoadjuvant setting — that is, prior to the delivery of the main treatment. Hormone-blocking drugs, for instance, are sometimes used to shrink prostate tumors before treatment with radiation therapy. Radiation therapy can itself be...

FatCamera / E+ / Getty Images Purpose of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy All systemic therapy given for non-metastatic, invasive breast cancer is intended to reduce the risk of your cancer returning. But the purpose of administering it prior to surgery is to shrink your tumor or stop the spread of cancer to make surgery less invasive and more effective. • Patients with locally advanced breast cancer, including triple-negative and inflammatory breast cancer • Patients with early stage breast cancer who present with larger breast tumors (greater than or equal to 2 centimeters) and chemo-responsive tumor markers (i.e., • Patients who are not surgical candidates: If you have absolute or relative contraindications to surgery, such as advanced age, obesity, or multiple medical comorbidities, in the setting of The type of therapy that you use depends on the type of breast cancer you have. Doctors often use neoadjuvant chemotherapy as a way to see if your cancer will respond to a particular medication. If the cancer does not respond to that drug, your doctor will use other drugs for treatment, which may prolong your treatment course. What to Bring Bring a list of the medications you are taking, identification, and your insurance card. Ask whether you will be able to use electronic devices such as your cell phone or an electronic book in the therapy room. Also, ask whether a support person can keep you company during the treatment. Your doctor will likely suggest that you get a ride home ...

Chemotherapy is more effective than toripalimab as adjuvant therapy in patients with resected mucosal melanoma, according to research presented at the ASCO Annual Meeting 2023. Patients who received chemotherapy, consisting of temozolomide and cisplatin, had better recurrence-free survival (RFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), and overall survival (OS) outcomes than patients who received toripalimab, researchers found. The researchers conducted this retrospective study in 247 patients with resectedmucosal melanoma. The patients had received temozolomide plus cisplatin (n=169) or toripalimab (n=78) as adjuvant therapy between 2013 and 2019. Propensity score matching was used to match patients from each group based on demographic and clinical characteristics, such as age, sex, primary site location, and infiltration depth. After matching, there were 65 patients in each group. The median RFS was 28.2 months in the chemotherapy group and 12.0 months in the toripalimab group (hazard ratio [HR], 0.64; 95% CI, 0.42-0.98; P=.037).The median DMFS was 42.0 months in the chemotherapy group and 19.0 months in the toripalimab group (HR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.36-0.92; P =.018). The median OS was 93.4 months in the chemotherapy group and 39.3 months in the toripalimab group (HR, 0.56; 95% CI, 0.33-0.94; P =.027). When evaluating outcomes across subgroups, the researchers found that RFS, DMFS, and OS were improved among patients who received chemotherapy. Treatment-emergent adverse ev...