Chemotherapy Mistakes

I chose to write an essay about the “Topic of Cancer” by Christopher Hitchens. In this short autobiographical essay, Hitchens discusses his experience with Esophageal cancer. Just one day after lanching his book “Hitch-22” Hitchens was made aware of his illness, where he later describes the news as “taking me from the country of well, to the stark frontier.” It was then he chose to write about his experience for the purpose of documenting the changes that he, and his body were about to go through with chemotherapy, and also for the purpose of contemplating his current situation. The reason that I chose this story is because of my own personal experiences that I have had with many loved ones in my life. There is one case in particular that stands out in my memory, among the rest. It was when my friend of many years discovered that he had a very rare form of brain cancer. Soon after undergoing chemotherapy, he lost his battle. There are many people that believe chemotherapy at any stage is the best, and often times, the only way to cure cancer, yet others claim that chemotherapy is not the answer at all. A close analysis of recent statistics can settle this debate.

Medical technology is advancing rapidly with each passing minute. It is becoming more urgent for health care facilities to invest in equipment that is current and state of the art. Behind these advancements are proven statistics that certain equipment is a necessity when diagnosing and treating patients. We, as health care workers, owe it to our patients to have the best possible equipment in our facilities. Aside from non-melanoma skin cancer, breast cancer has become the most common cancer among women in the United States. Breast cancer does not discriminate. It is one of the

Cancer is a term used for diseases in which irregular cells divide without any control and have the capability to penetrate and infect normal body tissue through the blood and lymph system. Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality in the United States, exceeded barely by heart disease. According to the CDC Cancer Statistics and Data, there were more than 1.45 million people diagnosed with various kind of cancer between 1999 and 2007 and out of those more than 562,000 people died due to cancer (cdc.gov, 2012). Currently there are more than 200 different types of cancer that have been discovered. Cancer could be

From surgery to radium exposure to such extremes as radiation therapy, as doctors’ knowledge of the varying types of cancer, and the expansion of medical research regarding cancer has changed, so has the preferred method of treatment. Doctors and researchers dedicated to studying cancer have led to a greater understanding of cancer development; consequently the development of treatments and cures that are more effective, less harmful, have fewer side effects, and in some cases serve to prevent the spread of cancer.

Since chemotherapy agents have been around in the 1950s there have been studies to find out the effect on the health care workers, particularly the pharmacists who make the drugs and nurses who administer the drugs to the patients. I will be focusing my research on the nurses who administer the chemotherapy drugs to the patients. Chemotherapy falls under the hazardous drug category due to the low levels of exposure nurses are exposed to while administering chemotherapy.

Throughout life, many individuals experience difficulties due to growing up in everyday life. While going in depth of the human life, it is discovered that there are many diseases and disorders that affect humans’ everyday functions. A very popular disease that has traumatically affected the human body is cancer. Cancer is a disease that spreads throughout your body in many ways. The purpose of cancer is to attach to a blood cell in your body and cause a plague within itself, causing the body to initially shut down and die. This disease contains many forms and have many causes to it. However its main goal is to destroy the human body.

“Lets not call cancer patients as patients, they are cancer fighters. They are brave hearts” - Vikrmn, Gura. Nowadays, you hear more and more people getting cancer(13). It is a stress that many people worry about. You worry if one of your parents will get it. You pray your children don't’ get it. It’s a constant worry. You watch television and you can get this horrible monster from microwaving your food, drinking bottled water, carrying your phone in your pocket, using deodorant, coloring your hair and much more. Finding a cure for cancer would be a prayer answered for many.

Finding a panacea for cancer will be an arduous task with a very lengthy and discouraging trial and error period. Inevitably there will be some trying hurdles to get past in search of this cancer panacea, but, one that seems to be the most difficult to get passed is the severity and variety of the case presented. Doctors see this as overwhelming and very daunting since they do not want to get a patient’s hopes up if the medicine turns out not to work, or cause things to get worse. If doctors believe they have found this new and astonishing drug that cures all cancer at all stages and they prescribe it but turns out to only make the cancer worse, they will have to live knowing that they hurt all of these people and their families forever. In

Most chemotherapy drugs are given as a course of up to ten sessions (cycles) of treatment. This will depend on the type of drug you are having. At each treatment session you will be given the chemotherapy drug through a drip (infusion). This involves running a liquid containing the drug through a fine tube (cannula) into a vein in your arm. This allows the drug to enter the bloodstream and travel throughout the body.

Why focus on treatment instead of finding a cure? It is simple; there is in profit in finding a cure for cancer. Desperate and eager to live, the typical cancer patient spends about $50,000 fighting the disease. Chemotherapy drugs are among the most expensive of all treatments, many ranging from $3,000 to $7,000 for a one-month supply. If the cancer industry allows a cure, then their patient base goes away (Dr. Mercola, D. (2011, January 1). Cancer: Forbidden Cures | Natural Cancer Treatment. Retrieved February 26, 2015, from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/08/03/natural-cancer-treatment.aspx.) It makes more

As a result, the amount of money that gets propelled back into the healthcare industry skyrockets as the list of medical issues following these treatments grows more and more extensive. A study done by Dr. John Diamond shows that females who undergo chemotherapy and radiation treatments “face a 35% chance of developing breast cancer by the time they are 40, which is 75 times greater than average” (Dr. John Diamond, MD). Chemotherapy and radiation have been proven to weaken, and sometimes completely destroy, the immune system. This makes the already physically unstable patient even more susceptible to illnesses and diseases that they wouldn 't otherwise have had to worry about. Consequently, the recurrence of cancer is a very likely, and in some cases, unavoidable. But it is unacceptable that the most common and easily accessible drug is the reason why 35% of patients will develop a second cancer (haematologica.org). Many other cancers can come as a result of chemotherapy too. One study found that, "Patients who underwent chemo were 14 times more likely to develop leukemia and 6 times more likely to develop cancers of the bones, joints, and soft tissues than those patients who did not undergo

I work in an oncology clinic where we use anticancer treatments like chemotherapy. When a patient is diagnosed with leukemia, the Oncologist usually

In 2010, Elshamy, El-Hadidi, El-Roby, & Fouda have completed a study to determine the health hazards exposed to chemotherapy drugs among nurses, identify potential risk factors that may predispose nurses to chemotherapy hazards; and evaluate the availability and us of protective measures in clinical practice. Based on the research, abortions, infertility, premature labor, and developmental and behavioral abnormalities among the children of the nurses are the most common adverse effects of chemotherapy to the nurses administering chemotherapy. Soft tissue injuries were also reported from spills and splashes. Urine samples of the nurses were mutagenic which could cause genetic changes to their off springs. Furthermore, the study stated that risky

Nowadays, there are many diseases that affect our lives. Some of them are minor and can be treated easily. However, the other diseases are fatal and difficult to be cured. One of the most deadly disease is cancer. Cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells divide without control and can invade nearby tissues.

Bacteria accurately target tumors, actively enter tissue, simply recognized and controllably produce cytotoxicity. also, Several popular cures such as chemotherapy and radiation are poisonous for healthy tissue and not fully damage every cancer cells. Three main reasons for these difficulties are deficient tumor targeting, poor tissue invasion and insufficient toxicity to each cancer cells. These disadvantages limit qualified therapy and are linked with the rise in morbidity and mortality.