Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy involves administering drugs directly into the venous system through a device called an “implantable port”. Its role is to destroy cancer cells regardless of their location.

During the initial treatment it is administered every three weeks or every week according to the protocols. Two medications are generally combined (paclitaxel or TAXOL and carboplatin or CARBOPLATIN), to which targeted antiangiogenic therapy (bevacizumab or AVASTIN) can be added.

Other drugs are combined on the day of chemotherapy and the following days, to reduce its side effects (nausea, sometimes anemia or a drop in white blood cells, for example). Chemotherapy is performed in the vast majority of cases on an outpatient basis, that is to say in less than a day of presence in the hospital with a return home the same day.

Adverse effects depend on each protocol. Explanations will be given to you on the effects most frequently encountered with the treatment that will be offered to you. You may be asked to take a blood test once a week and send the result to your laboratory in order to improve your monitoring. In all cases, a slightly more complete blood sample must be taken before each administration of chemotherapy.

You may be offered to participate in therapeutic trials allowing you, for example, to benefit from new molecules.