Side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy

For a lay person:

Chemotherapy and radiotherapy can damage healthy cells as well as cancer cells, causing side effects. Common ones include nausea, tiredness, mouth sores, diarrhoea, hair loss and a lower blood count that makes infections more likely. Most settle after treatment ends, but some can be serious.

For a trained medical person:

Toxicity reflects damage to rapidly dividing tissues: myelosuppression, mucositis, gastrointestinal toxicity, alopecia and fatigue, plus agent-specific effects such as neuropathy, cardiotoxicity or nephrotoxicity, and local radiation injury in the treated field. Assessment is by clinical review graded with standard toxicity criteria and regular blood counts and organ function tests. Management includes antiemetics, mouth care, nutritional support, growth-factor support, dose adjustment by the oncology team and urgent treatment of febrile neutropenia.

In Chinese medicine:

Liu and Tseng's textbook differentiates this condition into these patterns: Spleen Deficiency and Excess Damp; Damp-Heat in Spleen and Stomach; Stomach Yin Deficiency; Heart and Spleen Accumulated Heat; Spleen and Kidney Deficiency; Spleen Deficiency Type; Damp-Heat at Lower Jiao; Yin Deficiency with Blood Heat; Qi Deficiency, Blood Stasis, and Blood Not Returning to Meridian s; Absence of Significant Chills or Fever (Early Stage of Kidney Da mage); Stomatitis, Pharyngitis, and Damages to Salivary Gland for Radi ation Therapy at Head. Treatment follows the pattern a patient presents with, not the Western diagnosis alone.

When to get help: Fever, chills or feeling suddenly unwell during chemotherapy is an emergency needing same-day hospital care, as is being unable to keep fluids down. Many herbs interact with chemotherapy, radiotherapy and targeted drugs, so always check with your oncology team before taking any.