Chemo Harms More Breast Cancer Patients

EXCERPTS: Younger breast cancer patients seem to suffer more serious
side effects from chemotherapy than previously thought. Roughly one in
six of those women wind up at the emergency room or hospitalized
because of such side effects as infection, low blood counts,
dehydration or nausea, researchers reported Tuesday.

Some of the side effects occurred at rates three to four times higher
than earlier research had predicted.

Tuesday's study marks the first attempt to assess the real-world risks
of chemotherapy for some 35,000 breast cancer patients under age 64
who get the drugs each year.

Many breast cancer patients don't need chemotherapy in the first
place; surgery, radiation and hormone treatment are enough. But
doctors don't always have an easy way to tell who would benefit from
chemo on top of all that.

Moreover, 61 percent of the chemo recipients had an ER visit or
hospitalization for some reason -- not just a chemotherapy-related
side effect -- compared with 42 percent of breast cancer patients not
on the drugs. The study couldn't explain the difference.

Better understanding of the risks is especially important for those
patients who choose chemo despite a good prognosis, when it may
increase their chances of survival by less than 5 percent, Dr. Joseph
Lau of the Tufts-New England Medical Center wrote in an accompanying
editorial.


http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH...9?d=dmtICNNews

(thanks to CFM)

Chemo Harms More Breast Cancer Patients
August 16, 2006


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