What is green chemotherapy?

Chemotherapy is a milestone in cancer treatments. It applies chemo drugs to kill tumor cells, suppresses the growth & proliferation of cancer cells, and improves the differentiation of cancer cells. Chemotherapy is currently considered as a main therapy for cancer; however, because of the reason that conventional chemotherapy can result in decreased immunity and normal tissue cells damage. Patients are more and more desired to have a therapy that may not do great damage or has severe side effects to the body.

Thus, Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou modified conventional chemotherapy with means, minimizing its side effects while maximizing the efficacy, which is believed to be a new chemical weapon to treat malignant tumor. With the advantages of reduce side effects greatly, those chemotherapies applied in the hospital are considered as green chemotherapies.

Types of chemo drugs

Currently, there are about 100 chemo drugs used to treat cancer. The majority of them can be divided into alkylating agents, antimetabolites, antitumor agents, antibiotics, plant alkaloids, hormones and immune inhibitor.

What are the advantages of green chemotherapy?

1.Increase therapeutic effects, shrink the tumor till it disappears;

2.Control the growth and metastases of tumor ;

3.Palliate symptoms and improve quality of life;

4.Prolong patient’s life expectancy.

Treatment schemes

Single chemotherapy or combined chemotherapy: Single chemotherapy is given alone while combined chemotherapy is given with other therapies to enhance therapeutic effects.

Route of administration: Orally administration; External application;Injection (including intravenous injection, intramuscular injection, subcutaneous injection, intra-arterial injection, pleural injection, peritoneal injection, block injection)

How many types of green chemotherapy are applied in Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou?

Molecular targeted therapy

Based on the theory of molecular biology & pathogenesis of cancer, molecular targeted therapy acts in the way -- aiming at the targeted tumor and killing cancer cells directly by specifically blocking the passage of epidermal growth factor receptor. This will do no harm or only mild damage to normal tissue cells.

Chronochemotherapy

In accordance with human biological clock, chemotherapy is performed by multiple channels, too. Chemo drugs will be given when tumor cells are actively and believed to be most susceptible while normal cells inactive. In this way, minimal dose of medicine can achieve best effects with lowest side effects to the body.

Local infusion chemotherapy

Anticancer drugs are infused through blood supplied artery to target and kill the tumor with high drug concentration. To enhance the therapeutic effects and effectively of killing residual cancer cells and tiny lesions while to minimize side effects at the same time, chemo medicine is usually given in a local artery infusion manner. Subcutaneous port-catheter is placed in this situation, and one placement can serve many times of infusion chemotherapy generally.

Two-way infusion chemotherapy

Local intra-arterial infusion plus warm pleural infusion chemotherapy consist of the so called two-way infusion chemotherapy. Warm intra-cavity infusion chemotherapy leads to high drug concentration and longer duration of effects on tumor, so as to enhance therapeutic effects.