Ordinarily, they prefer the drug bleomycin to ifosfamide, because it is equally effective and less likely to cause nausea. But bleomycin can slightly injure the lungs. So the doctors settled on the nastier but ultimately safer ifosfamide. Armstrong continued to ride between treatments, and by late December his chemotherapy was over. But it was still unclear whether he was saved.
Doctors monitor progress with chest X-rays and blood tests.
His X-rays still showed abnormal growths in his lungs, but that could have been scar tissue, not cancer. Also, his alpha-fetoprotein levels were still high. Normally, this reading on blood tests is 1.5. Before treatment, his was 100,000. However, the blood protein returned to normal in February 1997, and two months later, his chest X-ray was clear, too.