Chemotherapy causeing cancer?

[earsofdoom]

My dad had hodkins cancer and so went in for Chemotherapy, he was doing fine for quite awhile but for the last month he's been really sick and after a check-up he needed replacement Bone Marrow to prevent Leukemia from developing.... which was caused by the Chemotherapy. I don't know much medical wise but I can't really wrap my head around why we are using a cureing method that causes much more aggressive cancer to form?

[Soluzar]

Perhaps it's an extremely rare side effect, and your dad was really, really unlucky. In the end it sounds like the doctors have been able to stop the Leukemia from becoming a problem, so the end result is positive. It's not like we have a whole lot of options for cancer. It's still the great unsolved problem of medical science.

[typhonblue]

The drugs they use in Chemotherapy are carcinogenic. Not only that but ten percent of people who take chemotherapy and have had their cancer go into remission will get another form of cancer that is highly resistant to chemotherapy.

There are a lot of other promising therapies for cancer. However... they don't get much press.

I can sympathize with your anger and confusion, earsofdoom. Having a parent with cancer is... tough.

Not much else I can say. :(

[sailornyanko]

Getting acute Leukemia from Chemo for Hodgkin Lymphoma is far more common than you think. Both Lymphoma and Leukemia are virtually the same disease except that Leukemia is cancer in the Bone Marrow where blood is made and Lymphoma where the cancer affects blood cells in the Lymphatic glands.

As to why doctors use atomic chemical bombs to nuke good cells and bad cells? Because technology in this era doesn't give us that many more options to treat cancer yet. Chemo drugs don't just nuke cancer cells, they destroy anything and everything. Doctors use different combinations of drugs that work for different kids of cancer. Cis-platine is widely used in a huge array of cancers.
Research has proven that there is a drug that blocks estrogen receptors to stop metastasis in advanced breast cancer. However, the working receptors are only present in certain (rather lucky in a way) people. This rather nontoxic treatment enables women to live with cancer that doesn't progress but can't be cured either. Eventually they die from a completely unrelated cause. I was rotating Oncology a few weeks ago and saw one of these women. I hadn't seen breast cancer in class yet and I was surprised that the doctor talking to the woman seems so unworried she had advanced cancer. I see now why he was assuring the woman she was going to live a long life.

Radiotherapy causes sarcoma cancer in a certain amount of people. Women that were cured of breast cancer by surgery and radio discover they have muscle sarcoma 5 years later. It's a far harder type of cancer to treat, but it can be cotrolled if detected on time. It's cancers like lung cancer or esophagus cancer that are inevitably deadly even if detected early.

As far as blood cancers, I'd think ear's father didn't get the worst kind. Over 80% of people treated for Hodgkin Lymphoma live 5 years after diagnosis, a lot of them fully cured of disease. Even stage 4 Hodgkin Lymphoma has a pretty good survival rate (whereas a cancer like Multiple Mieloma inevitable kills the person rather quickly). I assume the actor from Harry Potter got diagnosed too late or something. It metastazises to other lymph glands, but nothing so dramatic as ovarian cancer. Nasty disease.

Good luck to your dad finding a compatible donor. I actually find it unusual that an older person would be a candidate for a bone marrow transplant, doctors usually ban bone marrow transplants from anyone over 40 unless they are otherwise very healthy.

[earsofdoom]

Good luck to your dad finding a compatible donor. I actually find it unusual that an older person would be a candidate for a bone marrow transplant, doctors usually ban bone marrow transplants from anyone over 40 unless they are otherwise very healthy.

My Father became one early in life so he's only in his 30's, he's also rather healthy. (besides well.... the cancer) thank you for the support.

[VidelCoolGirl]

I'm also hoping your father is able to find a donor, and that he gets healthy like he used to be. Cancer is a very strange disease indeed, I've had my fair share of family members who suffer (and suffered) from it.

[CrossboneGundam]

I don't know much medical wise but I can't really wrap my head around why we are using a cureing method that causes much more aggressive cancer to form?

Chemotherapy kills fast growing cells. Red blood cells are among the fast growing cells damaged or killed by the chemotherapy. They're produced in the bone marrow. I think it's reasonable to surmise that the body would respond to a prolonged lack of red blood cell production by trying to compensate by increasing the amount produced, which could logically be achieved by increasing the amounts of bone marrow in the body to perform this function.

Research has proven that there is a drug that blocks estrogen receptors to stop metastasis in advanced breast cancer. However, the working receptors are only present in certain (rather lucky in a way) people. This rather nontoxic treatment enables women to live with cancer that doesn't progress but can't be cured either. Eventually they die from a completely unrelated cause.

Using hormones to stop cancerous cells from growing can't be anything more than a stop-gap measure at best, as hormones are fundamentally subordinate to DNA. If one really wants to cure cancer, using some sort of gene therapy to replace and/or repair the damaged/faulty DNA responsible for the unchecked cell growth is the most logical method.

Also, what do you mean by "a completely unrelated cause"? Doesn't that imply that the cancer is effectively halted and that death will come by some avenue other than said disease? Like old age, heart disease, etc.?

[animeotaku99]

CHemo is makes people sicker then they already are. although it may get rid of the cancer temporarily somehting worse will come about.
and Prostate cancer, the worse type geets no research grants, it doesnt even have a color ribbon that I know of. saem with testicular cancer.Also It's really sad that there are procedures out there other then Chemo that they won't use. IF you need to keep getting treatment then the derug company and hospital ect. get more money

[Soluzar]

From reading your post the first time, I thought you meant that your father already got a bone-marrow transplant, and was now on the road to recovery. Looking at some of the responses you've got... now I'm not so sure.

If he's still sick, I really do hope that he can get some treatment soon. If his original cancer has gone into remission, and he gets the transplant he needs, he could well live for a long time. As far as I understand it, there's a good success rate for bone marrow transplants.

[earsofdoom]

From reading your post the first time, I thought you meant that your father already got a bone-marrow transplant, and was now on the road to recovery. Looking at some of the responses you've got... now I'm not so sure.



well he is getting treatment, my blood was a decent match but we are waiting until we can get all the blood samples from his siblings (siblings have the lowest rate of rejection) so they have my Marrow on hand if non of the siblings match..... unfortunately my dad was not able to accept cultivated stem cells from my blood so they had to do full marrow extraction. (very painful indeed)

[sailornyanko]

Using hormones to stop cancerous cells from growing can't be anything more than a stop-gap measure at best, as hormones are fundamentally subordinate to DNA. If one really wants to cure cancer, using some sort of gene therapy to replace and/or repair the damaged/faulty DNA responsible for the unchecked cell growth is the most logical method.

Also, what do you mean by "a completely unrelated cause"? Doesn't that imply that the cancer is effectively halted and that death will come by some avenue other than said disease? Like old age, heart disease, etc.?

I think I mixed you up. In the example I used, blocking the hormone receptors in cells (not everyone has these kinds of receptors, if you have them, you'll do better) stops cancer cells in some typed advanced breast cancer to glue itself to far off tissue. The cancer still is there growing on it's own, but it can't properly do metastasis. Since breast cancer goes to the lungs, liver and brain, stopping the cancer from going to these organs and not screwing them up means the person can live with the tumor for a number of years. If it's just sitting there in the breast doing nothing (and usually they do mastectomies in these patients anyways to reduce tumor size). If the tumor just sits there under your skin near your armpit just sitting there and not going anywhere else, the affected tissues aren't vital. Plus radiotherapy slows the growth even more. Since these receptors are mostly seen in women over the age of 50 past menopause, it's more probable they will die from a heart attack or diabetes.

[sailornyanko]

and Prostate cancer, the worse type geets no research grants, it doesnt even have a color ribbon that I know of. saem with testicular cancer.

Prostate cancer indeed is underrated. So much buzz about colon cancer when prostate cancer kills far more men than colon cancer. My grandfather died from it actually. Worse is that there is a perfectly good way to detect it fairly early, but men over age 40 don't wanna do it. You know what I mean. Unless the guy is gay, then he probably won't mind getting rubbed down there.

Testicular cancer is very deadly depending on the type, but it's not that common fortunately.Plus I think a guy would notice something is wrong with him when his balls get unusually large and it isn't liquidy inside.

[sailornyanko]

well he is getting treatment, my blood was a decent match but we are waiting until we can get all the blood samples from his siblings (siblings have the lowest rate of rejection) so they have my Marrow on hand if non of the siblings match..... unfortunately my dad was not able to accept cultivated stem cells from my blood so they had to do full marrow extraction. (very painful indeed)

Ouch. They took your marrow before they tested your father with his siblings if any one of them is more compatible? I'd be so angry if I discover at the end there was a better match after getting a sygringe plucked inside of my pelvis or back.

[earsofdoom]

Ouch. They took your marrow before they tested your father with his siblings if any one of them is more compatible? I'd be so angry if I discover at the end there was a better match after getting a sygringe plucked inside of my pelvis or back.

They didn't really "take it" so much as i suggested they do, the hospital he's staying in is far away and if it ever snowed really badly and i couldn't get in to give the marrow if one of the siblings didn't match that would be horrible.