Most cancer patients that have started undergoing chemotherapy would most likely be able to speak about their chemotherapy protocol and would know what that is. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it is a list of procedures and characteristics that describe the aim, the means, the potential risks and complications and the expected positive results of the medication that is included in the chemotherapy treatment offered by the doctor. This protocol is to be used as a sort of guide or reference throughout the prescribed treatment.

To get down to more details, the chemotherapy protocol should present the prescription circumstances, meaning that it should specify the pathology type that the treatment has been prescribed for (the location of cancer, the cancer stage, and so on). It should also include indications and contraindications, it should pinpoint all the situations in which this specific chemotherapy protocol should be allowed or forbidden and it ought to make references to specialized literature for whatever sort of clarifications may be needed throughout the treatment.

Another important aspect of the chemotherapy protocol is to include information and clear description of the drugs that the patient will take. Drug information will have to refer here to the dosage which is usually established depending on the patient’s body weight, surface, the appropriate concentration to be found in the blood, and so on. Other details should make reference to the day and the hour(s) when the dosage should be administered and the period of the administration. Moreover, the chemotherapy protocol should specify how the drug is to be administered, that is, the route of administration, as doctors call it (oral, intravenous, abdominal, etc). In some cases adjuvant treatment may be required and that should also be mentioned in the protocol together with all the precautions and measures that ought to be taken during and after the treatment.

Last but not least, the chemotherapy protocol should talk about the cycles of the treatment. That means it should specify the intervals that separate the various cures and whether the dose intensity varies or not, and if so, under what circumstances. It should also stipulate the recommended number of cycles, the toxicity that the drugs may lead to, the level of recovery reached before beginning a new cycle, the conditions that may require partial or complete cessation of treatment, the modifications and the ways for the patient to adapt to dose increase or decrease.

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