Oncological Society of Aust.

[Eliza]

https://www.cosa.org.au/media/1093/cosa_guidelines_safeprescribingchemo2008.pdf Clinical Oncological Society of Australia The above web address will take you to their very interesting site, some excerpts from it are below. A lot of the information given is about things I knew nothing -- even after a total of 14 cycles of chemo given in 2 States. The whole article is well worth a read. HAS ANYONE BEEN GIVEN ANY OF THE INFORMATION THAT IS RECOMMENDED ? " Patients should be given both written and oral information about their treatment to include all medications, expected side effects, how to take supportive medication and who to contact in the event of an emergency or severe adverse events. General and specific side effects expected from the treatment to include Immediate effects (e.g. hypersensitivity reactions, extravasation). Short term effects (e.g. nausea and vomiting, neutropenia, alopecia). Long term effects (e.g. infertility, carcinogenesis, cardiotoxicity). Where appropriate, information about potential teratogenic effect of cytotoxic agents and pregnancy precautions should be given Occupational health and Safety Precautions Capital spelling in the following sentence is mine. Chemotherapy is known to be MUTAGENIC, CARCINOGENIC, and TERATOGENIC. It is beyond the scope of this document to address the issues of safe handling and prevention of occupational exposure. Health care professionals should refer to individual state guidance on health and safety related to safe handing of chemotherapy and targeted therapy. With the wealth of information available through the internet it is useful to provide patients with a list of websites appropriate for them to obtain further evidence based information on their disease and treatment. Information should be given on the first visit and reinforced on subsequent visits. Questions regarding compliance, treatment tolerance, and adverse events must always be addressed at each appointment. Table 3 outlines suggested information that should be provided to patients. Table 5. Suggested content of treatment plan Patient name and TWO other unique identifiers (e.g. hospital number, date of birth) Diagnosis Name of the chemotherapy protocol to be given The date the it is intended that the treatment commences Intended duration of treatment and the no of cycles for treatment Tests to be performed after specified number of cycles Therapeutic goal of treatment (e.g. curative, palliative) xxxxxxxxxxx Details of other therapeutic modalities i.e. surgery, radiation Any treatment variations such as dose reductions If dose reduction occurs then the reduction factor should be clearly documented along with the reason for the reduction. e.g. Dose reduced to 75% of scheduled dose due to diarrhoea. " MEANINGS OF WORDS. CARCINOGENIC - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinogenesis‎ Carcinogenesis or oncogenesis or tumorigenesis is literally the creation of cancer. It is a process by which normal cells are transformed into cancer cells. ‪Mutagen‬ From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search In genetics, a mutagen is a physical or chemical agent that changes the genetic material, usually DNA, of an organism and thus increases the frequency of mutations above the natural background level. As many mutations cause cancer, mutagens are therefore also likely to be carcinogens. Not all mutations are caused by mutagens: so-called "spontaneous mutations" occur due to spontaneous hydrolysis, errors in DNA replication, repair and recombination. Teratogenic | Define Teratogenic at Dictionary.com dictionary.reference.com/browse/teratogenic‎ ◦ Cached ◦ Similar a drug or other substance capable of interfering with the development of a fetus, causing birth defects. WITH THE MEANING OF THE TERM ----TERATOGENIC (above), WHY WOULD IT NOW BE CONSIDERED -- AND IT IS, TO ADMINISTER CHEMO DRUGS TO PREGNANT LADIES ???? Eliza.