Hodgkin’s Disease Treatments — Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy for Hodgkin's Disease

Oncologists at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) use several treatment options to create a comprehensive Hodgkin’s disease treatment plan personalized to you. One of the treatment methods we use to treat Hodgkin’s disease is chemotherapy.

Chemotherapy uses drugs that can destroy Hodgkin's disease cancer cells by impeding their growth and reproduction. These chemotherapy drugs often are called "anticancer" drugs. Chemotherapy drugs are given by mouth or intravenously (i.e., by injection into a vein or muscle). Although chemotherapy may be used alone as a treatment option for Hodgkin’s disease, it is often combined with radiation therapy or surgery.

Managing Side Effects

When used as a Hodgkin’s disease treatment, chemotherapy may have some unpleasant side effects. These side effects can include nausea, vomiting, hair loss and mouth sores. Your care team at CTCA will provide methods to help reduce these side effects so you can better tolerate your chemotherapy treatment.

For example, fractionated dose chemotherapy may help reduce some of the treatment-related side effects of traditional chemotherapy, particularly nausea and vomiting. In fractionated dose chemotherapy, the total dose of your chemotherapy is broken into smaller amounts and administered over a longer period of time.

Your care team at CTCA will also provide supportive therapies to help make chemotherapy side effects more bearable. For instance, our naturopathic practitioners will recommend supplements that may help reduce nausea and other side effects.

Furthemore, in addition to offering many standard chemotherapy protocols to treat Hodgkin’s disease, your care team at Cancer Treatment Centers of America will continually revise its chemotherapy protocols to reflect new treatments.

Next Topic: Fractionated Dose Chemotherapy for Hodgkin's Disease