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Friday, March 5, 2010

Chemotherapy For Colorectal Cancer

Colorectal cancer is the second type of cancer associated cause of death in America. This disease is also referred as bowel cancer or colon cancer.
Cure for the cancer varies according to each severity case. Doctors usually use a combination of therapies that can include surgery, chemotherapy and radiation to successfully treat each specific case of colorectal cancer.
It surely means patient suffering from cancer of the large intestine when diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The cells of a colon or rectal polyp can eventually become abnormal, which could begin to damage healthy tissue of their colon and rectum resulting in a malignant tumor.
Doctor usually utilizes chemotherapy as additional supportive treatment to slow tumor growth, reduce tumor size and reduce the development of metastasis along with surgery. It can be recommended before or after surgery.
This cure involves the use of anticancer drugs to kill and eliminate abnormal cells. These drugs enter the bloodstream in order to eradicate cancer cells throughout the entire body.
But, this treatment is not the first option for treatment of colorectal cancer, especially in earlier stages. Another medical cure like a colonoscopy or a colectomy is more performed to either extract the malignancy itself or remove the diseased section of the large intestines.
Types of chemotherapy drugs for colorectal cancer are varies depending on the patient case, also the chemotherapy side effects. There are basic anticancer drugs that are regularly used with this form of the disease regardless of how chemotherapy is used.
Drugs like Fluorouracil are probably the most common, but you may also be given additional drugs like capecitabine, oxaliplatin, irinotecan, leucovorin in variety dosage. The drug can be a combination of two to three of the five which are given intravenously over a course of weeks to months.

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