The following article is based on a true experience.
Recently, my mum suffered from rectal cancer, and being a dentist, it was all new to me and that’s when I learnt about the treatment regimen. FOLFOX Chemotherapy is a standard chemotherapy regimen for colorectal cancers. Chemotherapy is an adjuvant/neoadjuvant, that is, given before or after tumour removal surgery to kill the cancer cells.
It is a combination of 3 drugs:
- Folinic acid, also called leucovorin, calcium folinate or FA.
- Fluorouracil or 5FU
- Oxaliplatin.
Usually given as a chemoport, where you will have a port implanted in your chest that goes into your vein and will be implanted throughout the course of treatment. During the chemotherapy cycle, a bottle containing the chemotherapy drugs will be administered for a period of 46 hours, and the fluid will be infused through the wires to the port and into the target area. After a period of 46 hours, the needle from the bottle is removed and the bottle is discarded. As far as I have seen!
It is usually given after the surgical removal of the tumour(adjuvant). It is given as 12 cycles for 6 months, 2 times a month.
The side effects of this treatment include nausea, weakness, numbness and tingling in fingers, loss of appetite, although hair loss is not that evident.
So, this was all about the FOLFOX chemo in short. Share your knowledgein the commentsyou have heard about this.
MBH/PS