Chemotherapy Schedule

[AlexH]

I have a meeting with my Oncologist on Friday to layout my chemotherapy schedule and wondered if anyone could give me a rough idea of what sort of schedule I can expect? For the sake of this exercise let's say I'm on a 3 x BEP (as I think that is most likely).

Am I looking at 3 consecutive days followed by 2 weeks for each of the 3 cycles? Just trying to get my head around what to expect.

Thanks for all the help as always.

Alex

[Smartie]

Hi Alex.

Basically, you have three days of chemo (possibly as an out patient, but probably as in inpatient).
Then you have bleomycin (one hour infusion) on day eight (or nine), and bleo again (one hour) on day fifteen (or sixteen). On day 22 you start the cycle again (three days of chemo.

This is the explanation on the Macmillan website:

Three-day regimen

On the first day of your treatment (day 1) you will be given infusions of etoposide and cisplatin (as described above). The next day (day 2) you will have infusions of all three drugs, although the bleomycin is sometimes given as an intramuscular injection. On the third day (day 3) you will have just the etoposide.

If you are being treated as a day patient you can usually go home after each day's chemotherapy. If you have been an inpatient, you can usually go home after the chemotherapy on the third day.

Six days later (day 9) you will come back to have bleomycin. After this you will have no treatment for a week. You will have bleomycin again on day 16. You will then have a rest period with no chemotherapy for a week. This completes what is called a cycle of your treatment. Each cycle lasts three weeks.

Usually 2–4 cycles of BEP are given over a period of 2–3 months. This makes up a course of treatment.

See this link (Macmillan). Or this one(Teen Info on Cancer).

[underdog521]

http://bep-chemo.blogspot.com/

Hope this helps a little with the "what to expect" aspect. I'll be putting up my final post today since it's day 21 of my cycle =)

I think the "3 day" protocol is more used internationally. In the US, NCCN guidelines (which most oncologists follow) prescribe this:

Days 1-5: Etoposide, Cisplatin
Days 1,8,15 (2,9,16 is also acceptable): Bleomycin.

That means that on either day 1 or 2 you'll receive all 3 of your drugs.

[gilly6993]

For me it was days 1-5 EP, Days 2, 9, and 16 Bleo.....