chemo@home

In 1997 a study was published in “Blood”, arguably the most respected medical journal on blood cancers on planet earth.   The study was about the effect of exercise on treatment related fatigue after a type of bone marrow transplant called a peripheral blood stem cell transplant.   The study peaked my interest, not just because of the positive benefits of exercise on reducing fatigue, but because it also showed a benefit in other somewhat more unexpected areas.   It also reduced the length of time a patient’s white blood cell count is low after transplant, the severity of diarrhoea and the severity of pain.   Of these the one that interested me most at the time, was the effect on the white blood cell count.   The white cells are the part of your blood system which fight infection; without them the body is more prone to getting nasty bugs and less able to fight them off. So, what was so interesting about this finding?   In the early 80’s a medicat...

As a woman I have breasts.  As a white, western, woman I have about a 1 in 8 chance of getting breast cancer.   If I get breast cancer, I really don’t want chemotherapy, if I can avoid it.   Not unless it will make a significant difference to my outcome. Until recently, knowing if this was the case, was difficult. Rarely does a study comes out and say that chemotherapy is not needed; that it does not reduce the likelihood of the cancer coming back and does not increase survival.   But that is exactly what has happened in a large trial on breast cancer patients with hormone-receptor–positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)–negative, axillary node–negative breast cancer, who would have until now, been given what is known as adjuvant chemotherapy. Adjuvant chemotherapy is chemotherapy which is given after a potentially curative procedure (in the case of breast cancer this is surgery) to mop up any remaining cancer cells in the body that we c...