What is the Red Devil in chemotherapy?

The chemotherapy (“chemo”) drug “The Red Devil” is doxorubicin (Adriamycin). It is an intravenous cancer medicine with a clear, bright red color, which is how it got its nickname.

What can I expect from the red Devil chemo?

Common side effects (greater than 30%) include nausea and vomiting, low blood counts (red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelet count), with the nadir being around 10 days, mouth sores, and alopecia.

What is the strongest chemo medicine?

Doxorubicin (Adriamycin) is one of the most powerful chemotherapy drugs ever invented. It can kill cancer cells at every point in their life cycle, and it's used to treat a wide variety of cancers. Unfortunately, the drug can also damage heart cells, so a patient can't take it indefinitely.

Which is the most serious side effect of doxorubicin?

This medicine may cause irreversible heart muscle damage, leading to heart failure. This is more likely to occur if you have other heart problems, have had or currently receiving radiation therapy to your chest, or have received other cancer medicines.

How does red Devil Chemo make you feel?

My oncologist and chemotherapy nurse had warned me of the side effects from the two drugs: nausea, vomiting, mouth sores, low white or red blood cell counts, a metallic taste in my mouth, fatigue and the one very visible sign of chemotherapy: complete hair loss.

CHEMO BRAIN: BATTLING THE RED DEVIL

How long does doxorubicin take to work?

Liposomal doxorubicin is a light red liquid that you have through a drip (infusion) into your bloodstream. It usually takes between 30 to 90 minutes each time you have it.

How many times can you take Red Devil chemo?

Patients typically receive injections every 21 to 28 days on a specific cycle, but your dose schedule may be different. You may NOT be able to use doxorubicin if you have severe heart disease or severe liver disease.

Will I lose my hair with doxorubicin?

Your hair may become thin, brittle, or may fall out. This typically begins two to three weeks after treatment starts. This hair loss can be all body hair, including pubic, underarm, legs/arms, eyelashes, and nose hairs.

Is doxorubicin the strongest chemo?

Official answer. Doxorubicin is considered one of the strongest chemotherapy drugs for breast cancer ever invented. It can kill cancer cells at every point in their life cycle, and it's used to treat a wide variety of cancers, not just breast cancer.

What cancers are treat with doxorubicin?

Does Red Devil chemo work?

The researchers found the compounds worked as well as the original drug at killing cultured cancer cells and were nearly as effective at slowing tumor growth in mice.

What is aggressive chemo?

Aggressive care includes chemotherapy after multiple earlier rounds of treatment have stopped working and being admitted to an intensive care unit. Such interventions at the end of life “are widely recognized to be harmful,” Chen said.

How many rounds of chemo can a person have?

During a course of treatment, you usually have around 4 to 8 cycles of treatment. A cycle is the time between one round of treatment until the start of the next. After each round of treatment you have a break, to allow your body to recover.

How do you feel after doxorubicin?

What are the long term effects of doxorubicin?

One notable example is heart damage following treatment with Adriamycin (doxorubicin). With this drug, a possible long-term side effect is weakening of the heart muscle, resulting in heart failure (a decreased ability to pump blood through the body).

How do you know if chemo is killing you?

How many cycles of doxorubicin can you have?

Each cycle of treatment lasts 21 days (3 weeks). You usually have up to 6 cycles in total.

What does doxorubicin do to the body?

Doxorubicin is a type of chemotherapy drug called an anthracycline. It slows or stops the growth of cancer cells by blocking an enzyme called topo isomerase 2. Cancer cells need this enzyme to divide and grow. You might have doxorubicin in combination with other chemotherapy drugs.

Does doxorubicin cause weight gain?

Your doctor may give you a medicine to help prevent this. Call your doctor right away if you have a decrease or change in urine amount, joint pain, stiffness, or swelling, lower back, side, or stomach pain, a rapid weight gain, swelling of the feet or lower legs, or unusual tiredness or weakness.

Can you drink alcohol while on doxorubicin?

The drinking of alcohol (in small amounts) does not appear to affect the safety or usefulness of pegylated liposomal doxorubicin.

What is given with doxorubicin?

Doxorubicin is used in combination with other medications to treat certain types of bladder, breast, lung, stomach, and ovarian cancer; Hodgkin's lymphoma (Hodgkin's disease) and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (cancer that begins in the cells of the immune system); and certain types of leukemia (cancer of the white blood cells ...

Which is worse Adriamycin or Taxol?

HAMBURG-In previously un-treated women with advanced breast cancer, doxorubicin (Adriamycin) yields a higher response rate and longer progression-free survival than does paclitaxel (Taxol), according to the results of a randomized crossover trial conducted by the EORTC and presented at the Ninth European Cancer ...

How many years does chemo take off your life?

During the 3 decades, the proportion of survivors treated with chemotherapy alone increased from 18% in 1970-1979 to 54% in 1990-1999, and the life expectancy gap in this chemotherapy-alone group decreased from 11.0 years (95% UI, 9.0-13.1 years) to 6.0 years (95% UI, 4.5-7.6 years).

How many days does it take for chemo to leave your body?

It generally takes about 48 to 72 hours for your body to break down and/or get rid of most chemo drugs. But it's important to know that each chemo drug is excreted or passed through the body a bit differently.

How can doxorubicin be fatal to a cell?

Doxorubicin exerts its anti-tumoral activity primarily by intercalation into DNA and inhibiting topoisomerase II (TOP2) in fast-proliferating cancer cells, leading to cancer cell death¹⁰.