Maintenance Therapy

Even with huge sums of money funding cancer research, the newest prognosis is simply longer chemotherapy. Doctors want to treat cancer patients continuously with drugs in the hope that tumors can be kept under control. This maintenance therapy won’t cure cancer, but it does offer potential to keep it in check.

Maintenance therapy isn’t new, but its usage is growing. Given this fact, it would be beneficial to know the answers to the following questions:

1. Does longer-term use of drugs really prolong the lives of cancer patients?
2. Will longer-term use of drugs subject cancer patients to more side effects?
3. Will tumors become resistant to the drugs over time?
4. Do greedy drug companies simply want more people using their drugs for increased periods of time?

Many (if not all) of these questions cannot be answered—at least not yet. At the surface, there may be a good rationale for maintenance therapy; however, doctors and patients need to dig deeper before actively engaging in the treatment.


References
Pollack, A. (2009, July 20). Considering longer chemotherapy. The New York Times, p. D1.