What to Know About Chemotherapy for Thymus Cancer
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| Chemotherapy drugs kill all cells that divide rapidly, including cancer cells. |
Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to kill cancer cells. For this treatment, you see a medical oncologist. This doctor specializes in using drugs to treat cancer. For thymus cancer, your doctor is likely to give you more than one drug. This is called combination chemotherapy.
You may take chemotherapy by an intravenous line (IV) into one of your veins or you may take it in the form of a pill. Either way, chemotherapy is a systemic treatment because the drugs travel in the bloodstream killing cancer cells throughout your entire body. Most people with thymus cancer have chemotherapy in an outpatient part of the hospital, at the doctor’s office, or at home. In some cases, depending on your health or the drugs you take, you may need to stay in the hospital during treatment.
Chemotherapy is given in cycles. This means you will be treated for a period of time and then you will have a rest period. Each treatment and rest period make up one cycle. You’ll likely have more than one cycle of treatment. Your doctor will explain your treatment plan and what you can expect. The length of each treatment period differs, depending on the type of drug or drugs you take. With many types of chemotherapy, treatments are given every 3 to 4 weeks. Sometimes you will get chemotherapy more often.
Common Chemotherapy Drug Combinations for Thymus Cancer
These are the main drugs used to treat thymus cancer.
These drugs work best when they are given in combination. Here are 2 combinations used to treat thymus cancer.
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Cytoxan (cyclophosphamide), Adriamycin (doxorubicin), Platinol (cisplatin), and Oncovin (vincristine)
New forms of treatments include a group of drugs called taxanes. These new drugs are usually given in combination with another drug, such as in the combination of Taxol (paclitaxel) and Paraplatin (carboplatin).