Chemotherapy is the chemical treatment to treat cancer in its advanced stages when there are equal chances of life or death. The epoch chemotherapy is used for treating complicated cancers. It is normally used when the malignancies and tumors are worsened and get complicated due to other health conditions. The chemotherapy is the chemical procedure and has some side effects. The chemotherapy side effects take an adverse toll on the body of the patient.

The epoch chemotherapy includes the blend and mixture of different toxic drugs. The harmful drugs included in the chemotherapy are Etoposide, doxorubicin, cincristine, prednisone and cyclo-phosphamide. The epoch chemotherapy effectively deals with the large tumors by shrinking the size of these tumors. As the size of tumors is reduced, it becomes easy to remove them with the help of surgery.

In the Non-Hodgkin lymphoma treatment the chemotherapy drugs are injected in the body of the patient in combination with intravenous (IV) bolus cyclo-phosphamideand oral prednisone for at least four days. When this treatment was given to 74 patients, their immune system did not respond to the injected drugs, but surprisingly it responded in the patients with fatal Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. After treating the patients with epoch chemotherapy, medical tests were performed and the results were found. Results showed that the patients who were in the fourth stage of Lymphoma comprised of 77% patients and about 71% of patients responded to Non-Hodgkin lymphoma treatment. About 92% patients were injected with four drugs. .

Side Effects of Epoch Chemotherapy Treatment:

The epoch chemotherapy is given for treating complicated cancers. The treatment involves injecting the combination of harmful drugs into the body of the patient. These toxic drugs have many side effects on the human body. These chemicals help to kill the cancerous cells in the body, but they also reduce the healthy body cells. Hence, it is important to give this treatment to the patient after studying his family history and knowing whether any person in their family was allergic to any toxic drug.

The common chemotherapy side effects observed in patients are nausea, loss of appetite, depression, hair loss, etc. Some patients become resistant to the injection of these drugs in the epoch chemotherapy treatment.

The drugs used in the treatment for Non-Hodgkin lymphoma by epoch chemotherapy may cause neutropenia and gastrointestinal disorders in the patients.

How does Chemotherapy Work?

Chemotherapy works by killing the fast growing cells in human body with the use of some chemicals. There are some other useful fat growing cells in our body like RBCs, WBCs, hair cells, etc. The chemo treatment destroys these cells too. Hence it is important to perform the process in combination with other drugs and after taking great precautions.