Talk:Chemotherapy/Archive 1

message: I was taught that chemotherapy is the use of synthetic agents to selectively injure particular organisms or cells within a patient. This includes anticancer, antibacterial, antiviral, anti-fungal and anti-protozoal chemotherapy. Natural and semi-synthetic antibiotics are not included in a strict definition because they are natural compounds. The sulfonamides are synthetic "antibiotics" are so are true chemotherapeutic agents. I don't know about the natural-source anticancer drugs (vinca alkaloids and all that). The lay public thinks CHEMO = CANCER; I think it would be worth changing the slant of this article. Anyone else? ben 13:12, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "The treatment of disease, esp. of parasitic infections or cancer, by means of chemical substances which act selectively on micro-organisms or malignant tissue."  
The term was coined by Ehrlich, and it referred to the killing of (bacterial, protozoan, etc) cells by means of chemicals (as opposed to by serum (antibodies), etc.).
Later, the term was also applied to cancer cells, and there are a lot of similarities between the two.  I frequently hear antibiotics today referred to as chemotherapy, and I think this article should be moved to an article called "Cancer chemotherapy", and a new generic chemotherapy article should be implemented that discusses the similarities of the two, and points to both.  This is analogous to the word "steroid"...the popular definition means "anabolic steroid", but properly it is a more generic term, and the Wikipedia article reflects this.  Similarly, the popular definition of "chemotherapy" refers to "cancer chemotherapy", but Wikipedia doesn't yet reflect this. Mauvila (talk) 00:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Considering that some of the most promising anti-cancer agents are antibody-driven, perhaps this article should follow the WHO convention and be renamed to "antineoplastic agents", with "chemotherapy" serving as a disambiguation. --Arcadian (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure if the Ab would be considered chemo or not...I think the distinction between chemo and bio becomes trivial at some point thanks to modern molecular engineering.  "Anti-neoplastic agents" seems a little overkill...plus, the term agents will open the door to all sorts of herbal and junk remedies...chemotherapy still strongly implies the killing of cells, a quality which agents doesn't necessarily emphasize. Mauvila (talk) 18:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition 

message: Of course chemotherapy, can cause death. Why would chemicals not be able to kill you? 
Shouldn't the story of Abraham Cherrix be added? 
Abraham is a 16 year old teen that has cancer and the court tried to force him into taking Chemotherapy. 
Shouldn't there be something about criticism? There is a lot of criticism againsto chemo, and if it is a multi billion dollar industry there should be a lot of criticism against it. 
Like is it being used just to make money?
I very strongly agree there should be a discussion of the negative issues associated with Chemo for instance this from USA Today should be added:
Study: Chemotherapy can alter brain by killing cells
Posted 11/29/2006 9:07 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/...py-brain_x.htm
[Copy of entire article removed JFW | T@lk 23:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please refrain from listing off-topic anecdotes like this one (and in the previous section).  If you're interested in improving the article, please only propose content that could potentially be sourced by reliable sources.  Anecdotes by editors that are not listed in a reliable source are off-topic and can be removed at any time.  ~a (user • talk • contribs) 20:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Death, and Some other Notes. 

message: My sister, Leah, (41) took a 10 month's chemo due to Brest cancer, and suffered badly. She soon went bald after a week or so, then became constipated, became very smelly after 2 months and at about the same time her weight rapidly rose from 9st 2lb to 13st 6lb, after the 7th month due to water retention. She finally died of a heart attack the doctor was convinced was caused by here body weight problem. She also had trouble with anemia at this point. Her chemo would have only lasted for just over 3 more months and it would have been over. Chemo can kill with anemia and obesity in some cases! --86.29.255.225 01:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Please refrain from listing off-topic anecdotes like this one (and in the previous section).  If you're interested in improving the article, please only propose content that could potentially be sourced by reliable sources.  Anecdotes by editors that are not listed in a reliable source are off-topic and can be removed at any time.  ~a (user • talk • contribs) 20:19, 25 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Leah's death

message: Anybody object if I split the sections in "Types and dosage" onto their own subpages? --Arcadian 03:18, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know; the chemotherapy article as it stands isn't overly long—in total it still is less than 32 KB.  If you're planning on expanding those sections significantly, then it might be appropriate to split it into a sub-article.  (I could also see a benefit to giving parts of the article a good copy-edit, but I haven't got the time right now....) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:03, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Since we do already have pages for alkylating agent (and individual pages for a number of specific drugs) we could probably condense the section in this article a bit—describe the mechanism briefly and add a See main article: alkylating agent pointer. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:44, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I chose the middle path -- I split out Alkylating agent, Antimetabolite, and Antineoplastic, because they already had existing pages, and some of the content on those pages had been gradually diverging from the content on this page. The other categories I left in. --Arcadian 18:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Splitting types? 

message: The page needs a section on safe handling of chemotherapeutic agents.  Handling applies to healthcare providers, the patient, and the patient's household members.  See for example [Safe handling of hazardous drugs].  66.167.45.138 15:31, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And extravasation. JFW | T@lk 23:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Safety 

message: The article does not mention localised methods of delivery, targeted at the cancer itself. Any news.
:It does now. JFW | T@lk 23:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Delivery 

message: I've added some brief sections on isolated infusion approaches, stem cell harvesting
and autologous bone marrow transplant, and on minicells.  I've also discussed
the importance of these approaches since severe toxicity is the limiting 
constraint on dosage and effectiveness of traditional systemic chemotheraputic
approaches.
I hope that this helps.
(Naturally, please add to, modify and/or improve these changes.)
Regards,
G. Holt
:Mr(?) Holt--please sign your posts using the tool on your wikipedia editor.  Also, I edited your statement above.  Also, I am continuing to redact your minicell section.
Uh, pot-kettle phenomenon on signing here. The new approaches are useful, but are the minicells being used in practice? If not, they should not be mentioned. JFW | T@lk 23:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re : Delivery 

message: Someone keeps expanding the minicell section; I will continue to shorten it.  This is not a mainstream approach; this article is called "chemotherapy," not "chemotherapy research," so we should limit the experimental info on it.--Dr.michael.benjamin 05:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. There are many other delivery systems under development. JFW | T@lk 23:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Minicells 

message: What are the costs of a chemotherapy for an hospital, and more generally, from a Welfare-State point of view ? 82.240.207.81 13:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Some are cheap, and some are expensive (e.g. cyclophosphamide is 100x cheaper than paclitaxel according to a 2000 estimate - ). Modern targeted therapies are often very expensive. JFW | T@lk 23:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  chemotherapy cost 

message: The article initially states that the active compounds from the american mayapple work by an unknown mechanism, then under topoisomerase inhibitors it is claimed they are type II topoisomerase inhibitors... which is it?
207.108.208.213 03:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  inconsistency 

message: It's a new treatment that is being pioneared in the U.S.A. and U.K.
[]  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.244.128 (talk) 18:14, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Exsperimental Radar teatment 

message: Hi everyone, 
I have written an article about electrochemotherapy here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemotherapy
and I am trying to introduce links in articles on related topics (following the message at the beginning on article "This article is orphaned as few or no other articles link to it.Please help introduce links in articles on related topics. (January 2008)").
I believe it would be fairly appropriate to include the short paragraph in the 'cancer page', as I can not find any other article as related as this one.
You can read more about ECT at the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemotherapy and help me with providing some feedback about what to include in the paragraph.
Thank you, 
Matevz Leskovsek  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leskovsek (talk • contribs) 08:40, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Would this paragraph ba appropriate as the following:
Electrochemotherapy is a therapeutic approach providing delivery into cell interior of nonpermeant drugs with intracellular targets. It is based on the local application of short and intense electric pulses that transiently permeabilize cell membrane, thus allowing transport of molecules otherwise not permitted by a cellular membrane. Presently, applications for cancer treatment have reached clinical use (antitumor electrochemotherapy using bleomycin or cisplatin). Electrochemotherapy with bleomycin has been used to treat the patient for the first time in 1990 at the Institute Gustave Roussy in France, while electrochemotherapy with cisplatin has been used to treat the patient for the first time in 1994 at the Institute of Oncology, Ljubljana, Slovenia. Since then more than 600 patients were treated with electrochemotherapy all over the world (Australia, Austria, Denmark, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA).
Please, reply with some feedback (regarding the paragraph to include or regarding the whole ECT article).. I am not a doctor myself, I am a PHD student in the field of biomedical engineering working mainly on ECT.
Best regards, Matevz  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leskovsek (talk • contribs) 09:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I have added the above paragraph, please post any comments for discussion  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leskovsek (talk • contribs) 17:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

text: IMO, it belongs on Unproven cancer therapy.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Dear doctors! If you happen to disagree with the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemotherapy - I'll have to ask you to repair/edit it yourself or adress your issues on its dedicated talk page. I will also have to ask you NOT to express your feelings by not allowing to introduce links from other relevant articles, such as Wiki:Cancer.
I am currently reading the wiki guidelines and see no excuses for your behaviour. I understand the responsibility that you feel towards the "Cancer" article but I will have to ask you to reconsider the above inclusion.
For Gods sake, please read the article first: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrochemotherapy  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Leskovsek (talk • contribs) 16:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electrochemotherapy paragraph in Chemotherapy page? 

message: hi all,
i added a little bit of information about allogeneic and autologous transplants below the paragraph that had lots of wrong information. i dont really care to make a pretty paragraph with in depth information but below it i typed up some general sloppy information...at least all of it is correct. the paragraph above shows that the writer has no idea what transplants are actually used for..well the effort that i put into fixing that section was erased...that's lovely, just know that the information in the article regarding transplants is completely wrong
:If you contest something, use the  or  tags, but we can't have un-cited, grammatically unprofessional sentences (starting a sentence with lowercase, etc., as you did above — it's fine here, not in the article). Thx in advance. El_C 05:33, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: eh, i dont care enough to go through all that trouble, just know that the guy who wrote that paragraph has no idea of the purpose behind a transplant. its spelled allogeneic, not allogenic...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.138.161.23 (talk) 05:45, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, I don't know what that is. El_C 05:56, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  immunosuppression and stem cell transplants 

message: --86.29.246.126 (talk) 11:07, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Usefull links 

message: I think this page on Electrochemotherapy might be of relivence to. Merge it?--Amama z. Suliman (talk) 19:08, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Electrochemotherapy 

message: Do we agree that in common usage targeted therapy is not chemotherapy - and hence most antibody based therapy should be in targeted therapy instead ? Rod57 (talk) 14:58, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is a targeted therapy a chemotherapy 

message: The prodrug pages says many chemotherapies are prodrugs which are preferentially activated in hypoxic cancer cells (reducing side effects) - but there is no mention of prodrug here.  Could we list which are prodrugs ? Rod57 (talk) 17:51, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  prodrug 

message: Why was this moved to (oncology) in the first place? There is really no need for disambig pages for things like this, and it just messes up the layout of the site. IMO it's best to have it moved back by an admin. 75.79.59.93 (talk) 06:06, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Moved 

message: About this sweeping claim of inefficacy:  The study is out of date (17 years old!), and seems unfairly misrepresented here.  "Chemotherapy doesn't help most kinds of  advanced epithelial cancers" is rather different from "Chemotherapy cannot extend in any appreciable way the lives of patients".  
For one thing, an enormous number of people receiving chemo don't have advanced cases; for another, small-cell lung cancer probably is "common", and yet the evidence for efficacy is fairly strong there.  
It would be nice, I think, to have some information about the relative usefulness of chemotherapy for different conditions and different stages, but this isn't the way to go about it, and therefore I support its removal.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:34, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Efficacy 

message: Added a section on light water (aka deuterium-depleted water). There are certainly some studies which show it as a beneficial adjunct to chemotherapy, but seem to be clustered in eastern Europe. If there are some faults with these studies or this form of therapy, please mention them not only here but at the water and light water pages as well. -LlywelynII (talk) 11:38, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Light water/DDW 

message: I reverted a section on chemotherapy use in different cancers because I thought it wasn't specific enough leading to oversimplification, and because it appeared to contain some fundamental errors. Here's the diff.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.157.189.136 (talk) 10:09, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the problem lies in the translation between "curative use", "adjuvant" and "palliative" and "cure, partial or non-responsive". Furthermore, there are more complexities such as neo-adjuvant use, the influence of different stages in which the cancer can be diagnosed. If we want to create an overview along the lines you suggested, I think we should explain the words palliative, curative, adjuvant etc. and use guidelines from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (http://www.nccn.org/). I don't think a simple list will do; we need a short description of the place of chemotherapy in the treatment of each cancer. --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 21:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

text: Ovarian Cancer#Treatment mentions this with one reference. The pubmed search review[pt] "intraperitoneal chemotherapy" gives 270 entries, dating back to 1983, with 1037 entries without the review restriction. 
RDBrown (talk) 12:20, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Effect on different types of cancer 

message: More emphasis in this article needs to be placed on the secondary cancers that appear after treatment with chemotherapy.  There are a number of studies which have shown the chance of secondary cancer occurrence is quite high.  I will try and find up-to-date articles to add, unless someone beats me to it. MrAnderson7 (talk) 23:08, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Secondary Neoplasm due to Chemotherapy 

message: It killed her- []!--86.25.2.154 (talk) 19:07, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Corazon Aquino]] 

message: My edit summary in this edit to the chemotherapy talk page makes no sense now, because I combined the two archives. The old archive 1 was botched, so I combined it with archive 2, then moved the expanded archive to Talk:Chemotherapy/Archive 1. To make it clear: the history formerly at  is now at Talk:Chemotherapy/Archive 1. Graham87 06:58, 26 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Note on archives 

message: I picked the Nausea and Vomiting section for this tag, since it's full of words you just don't use every day. Example: The vomiting center is stimulated directly by afferent input from the vagal and splanchnic nerves, the pharynx, the cerebral cortex, cholinergic and histamine  stimulation from the vestibular system, and efferent input from the chemoreceptor trigger zone (CTZ). 
I think this section and probably others, would benefit from saying something like, "Chemotherapy can cause nausea and vomiting, due to the way the drugs interact with the body.""There are drugs to help control nausea and vomiting, and they are..." and then maybe a section on the mechanism. There is useful information here, but some of it is well hidden deep within the afferent input of the vagal and splanchnic nerves...but that afferent input is stimulated by reading jargon I can barely understand. Imagine if you're a soon to be cancer patient and you come to WP to find out about this, and you have wade through vocabulary that was written by, and seems to be intended for, doctors and medical school students. Hires an editor (talk) 02:33, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Is there any particular reason that you didn't boldly fix it already? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jargon 

message: :The usual rules apply.  Specifically, minority/alternative/fringe/pseudoscientific (pick any that apply) views must be presented as being that type of view, and widely accepted mainstream views must be presented as being the widely accepted mainstream views.  Wikipedia does not pretend that all views are equally valid merely because all views can be documented to exist. 
::Of probable relevance (based on previous editors' mistakes):  
::* Cancer prevention is not cancer treatment.  
::* Chemotherapy is not the only kind of cancer treatment, and most cancer patients receive multiple forms of treatment.  Please be careful to avoid the low-quality sources that have trouble differentiating between chemotherapy, surgery, immunotherapy, and radiation. 
::* Taking "natural" drugs is technically a form of chemotherapy.  For example, laetrile is a completely ineffective form of "natural" chemotherapy.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:47, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticism 

message: Read this page some time- --://www.ehow.com/video_4872391_types-chemotherapy-drugs.html.--Wipsenade (talk) 10:31, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Types of treatment 

message: Chemo is apparently one of the ways to treat Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease (AIED) these days- [].
--Wipsenade (talk) 10:41, 7 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease (AIED) 

message: In the section of alkylating agents the substances cisplatin, carboplatin and oxaliplatin are listed as examples. I think this should be changed, as neither of these agents are alkylating agents. These compunds work by forming crosslinks in the DNA, a lesion that is very different from alkylated DNA. Why not list true alkylators such as melphalan or chlorambucil instead? Sniffe35 (talk) 15:54, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes.  Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:06, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alkylating agents 

message: The light water chapter report citation with low scientific value so I delete it.
I mean, the impact factor of the journals are extremely low, the number of published paper in the field is also very low.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gutul (talk • contribs) 22:32, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't know how that ever got into the article. Thanks for removing it. JFW | T@lk 23:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree. Mikael Häggström (talk) 15:51, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  light water 

message: Now that it appears (from the discussion above) that this article should be THE article for the subject of cancer chemotherapy, it seems like the content in Antineoplastic should be merged to here. As it seems, the only information in Antineoplastic that is not found in Chemotherapy is a more detailed list of drugs fitting into Chemotherapy#Cytotoxic antibiotics (L01D). Mikael Häggström (talk) 13:10, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I performed the merge now. I left out some that was unreferenced and probably duplicate of already existing information here, but I welcome anyone to check if I forgot something important. Mikael Häggström (talk) 06:33, 22 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge [[Antineoplastic]] into [[Chemotherapy]] 

message: :Non-cancer chemotherapy should never have been created. It is not a standalone concept, and the terminology can easily be discussed here. JFW | T@lk 20:20, 18 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the Non-cancer chemotherapy could be merged to this article, such as to a section named Older definitions of the term chemotherapy. Still, I want it to be made clear that the subject of this article is cancer chemotherapy, and not any other definition of the term chemotherapy. Mikael Häggström (talk) 05:40, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

text: Could you merge the content back, into the history section? Thank you. JFW | T@lk 06:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure. However, many dictionaries still define chemotherapy as any treatment with chemicals (see Move/rename request above), so watchful waiting is still indicated for this case. Mikael Häggström (talk) 08:23, 19 May 2011 (UTC)

text: The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal.  Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.</div>
I've rewritten the lead to take care of all this, plus put in the elephant in the room, which is that by "chemotherapy" we really mean "cytotoxic drugs" (which now redirect here anyway). Understood in that sense, it's easy to explain what we mean by this word, and to qualify it when used in other senses. Read what I've written before you quicky revert me. I think I have it more or less right, if I do say so myself. Humbly yrs, SBHarris 23:41, 27 October 2012 (UTC)

text: I've tried to develop this a bit . —MistyMorn (talk) 00:06, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: That's okay, although it commits us to the dubious view that you can't call it chemotherapy unless you're treating cancer. Some people would agree with this, and others not. The better agreement is that the agents remain chemotherapeutic agents even when not used against cancer. The way the lede is written now, chemotherapeutic agents are sometimes used in disease therapy that isn't "chemotherapy." Which is a bit weird logically, even if I can't fault it colloquially. SBHarris 00:16, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyhow, I think we're getting there... A longstanding unaddressed conflict in the wording is now largely addressed, imo. And good leads never come easy anyway. Cheers! —MistyMorn (talk) 00:41, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that "chemotherapy == cytotoxic drugs" is fair.  That defines chemo regimens like CHOP-R as being non-chemo, because steroids and antibodies aren't cytotoxic.  There are a lot of medications normally considered "chemo" because they are drugs used to treat cancer, but that are not cytotoxic.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:16, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Originally I said that a chemo regimen was defined by having at least one cytolytic drug (chemo drug). CHOP-r has 3 out of 5. If it had none it wouldn't be considered chemo. However, as it is, it is. The regimen is defined by its nastiest agents. The regimen is a chemo regimen. This doesn't mean every component is. SBHarris 08:59, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Non-cancer chemotherapy

message: Why is there no discussion or even a link to using cannabis to minimize nausea and increase appetite?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.108.126.58 (talk) 18:52, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's addressed in Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, which is the place for specific treatments like that.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:20, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Cannabis ]] for nausea? 

message: I think the Adverse effects section should mention the Writing Treatment-induced damage to the tumor microenvironment promotes prostate cancer therapy resistance through WNT16B published in Nature Medicine on 05 August 2012 which had some resonance in the media (e.g. BBC).
It altredy exists a well sourced wiki related to this topic, WNT16, which should be linked too.
Enaki (talk) 10:13, 18 September 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This requires secondary sources. Please provide some. JFW | T@lk 21:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Treatment-induced resistance 

message: The following was added:
This seems an ongoing avenue of research, but requires a secondary source to be suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia. Please provide one. JFW | T@lk 21:48, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I agree that it's not (for Wikipedia's purposes) an ideal way of supporting the claims, but I think the claims are actually WP:Verifiable, and they might well be WP:DUE.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:24, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether DUE or UNDUE depends on what is inferred from this and implied by use of it. I think everybody believes that chemo has less effect against stem cells and that's why it's not more often curative. So what? This is not a "problem" (in the sense of making things worse), but more of a failing in the sense that we all wish it was better, and this is one reason why it is not. But stem cell effects do not speak to the real issue of whether chemo is (or isn't) better than nothing. If we think the surviving stem cells are now super stem cells made into Mighty Hulk Stem Cells by the chemo, let's see your evidence. We find out if chemo is better (or worse!) than nothing by doing clinical trials with proper non-treatment controls. All suggestions that it may be worse than nothing, based on dubious mechanistic arguments such as those above, need to be clinically verified. To use them to suggest anything like what I (think) is being suggested, is indeed WP:UNDUE and also WP:OR, WP:SYN, and WP:WRONGINFERRANCEDUMMKOPF.  SBHarris 23:55, 27 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Meta-analyses are limited to specific kinds of malignancy and specific drugs, so it's extremely difficult to make general claims. However, I've added the two sentences (cited above) after reading an article about head and neck carcinoma, saying that chemotherapy is not effective in this group and thus is discouraged. This seems to be common knowledge among oncologists now. Thus I probably should have added that the risk depends on the type of cancer and is high e.g. in head and neck carcionmaSylwia Ufnalska (talk) 07:43, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I wouldn't even regard chemo as worthless in head and neck cancer. It has shown a survival benefit when used concurently with radiation (chemoradiation, like RADPLAT). See here. Where chemo doesn't seem to do much good in head-and-neck is when used by itself, either before or after radiation. Assuming squamous cell tumors (remember that head and neck cancer is treated as a separate modality not due to tumor type, but simply because vital structure are crowded so closely together that simple wide resection as is done in other places, is often not an option). SBHarris 02:37, 29 October 2012 (UTC)

text: For what it's worth, I regard the statement as obvious, indeed almost self-evident—at least for anyone who has any experience or knowledge about cancer. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:09, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia articles are intended for those who do not have sufficient knowledge of a subject, rather than for experts.Sylwia Ufnalska (talk) 18:27, 28 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Of course. My point is that the statement shouldn't be controversial at all. A basic reference to establish verifiability should be enough. Axl ¤ [Talk] 18:31, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that SBHarris' worries are about "what is inferred from this".  We aren't trying to infer anything.  This isn't "so don't bother with the treatment your oncologist recommends, because it won't work"; the statements are more like "Hey, guess where those treatment-resistant cells come from".  I think we should include the idea, perhaps minus the "problem" wording.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:12, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ah. In that case, I throw "WP:WRONGINFERRANCEDUMMKOPF" [sic] back at SBHarris. Axl ¤ [Talk] 10:54, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  More primary research 

message: This is the edit in question. Section is concerned with methods of delivery, not oral care. If we were to cover oral care, I suggest adding content to Chemotherapy#Adverse_effects instead from a more authoritative source such as the NIH. Wafflephile (talk) 18:21, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  RE: link removal from [[Chemotherapy#Delivery]] 

message: I might be wrong but I think this article deserves a section on the costs of chemotherapy and issues in that field. Below are a couple interesting articles. The first one especially highlights how a treatment which costs 70,000$ in the US can cost much less in India... this is not due to a better service but due to the fact that there is no patent restricting the manufacture of the drug in India. I think if people were aware of specifics like this it might save many lives due to the fact that many who undergo chemotherapy purchase worse plans due to cost reasons or can only purchase until they are broke. I came to wikipedia to find a more organized and less biased account of chemo costs and the politics surrounding it and am sad there is no material. If this material exists somewhere on wikipedia I think it should be linked on this main page for chemotherapy. Finally, I cannot write this section myself as I am sure these citations I have linked are sub-par and someone with access to medical journals (especially a doctor in the field) could easily write up something very fruitful. 
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/why-chemotherapy-that-costs-70-000-in-the-us-costs-2-500-in-india/274847/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/153376-the-average-cost-for-cancer-chemotherapy-treatment/
http://news.yahoo.com/sky-high-price-chemotherapy-why-cancer-drugs-cost-223821525.html  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.222.9.12 (talk) 01:53, 2 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Costs 

message: I have added lots of references and changed lots of the sections. If there are any problems with what I have done let me know and I/we can sort it out. There are still a few statements that are not referenced so I tagged them with citation needed. I have removed the following paragraph about differentiation and chemotherapy because I couldnt find any references for it, feel free to stick it back in if you can reference it.
"Drugs affect "younger" tumors (i.e., more differentiated) more effectively, because mechanisms regulating cell growth are usually still preserved. With succeeding generations of tumor cells, differentiation is typically lost, growth becomes less regulated, and tumors become less responsive to most chemotherapeutic agents. Near the center of some solid tumors, cell division has effectively ceased, making them insensitive to chemotherapy. Another problem with solid tumors is the fact that the chemotherapeutic agent often does not reach the core of the tumor. Solutions to this problem include radiation therapy (both brachytherapy and teletherapy) and surgery." Simon Caulton (talk) 08:29, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: There doesn't seem to be anything controversial in the above paragraph. As somebody with a master's in oncology, is there something there that you don't believe? We don't remove information from WP just because we don't have a reference, we add a  tag. We remove only when the material looks fishy or is controversial, or is in a BLP. If you handled text otherwise, half of WP would disappear. SBHarris 19:48, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the reply. I do not necessarily have issue with the first part of the paragraph, although the only review article I could find only talked about differentiation and general prognosis/aggressiveness of the tumour. (Cancer cell differentiation heterogeneity and aggressive behavior in solid tumors ). However, the second part about radiation therapy and other treatments as a solution to chemotherapy not reaching the tumour core doesn't sound right to me. To my knowledge, the reason the chemotherapy cant reach the core is due to faulty vascular architecture, which is also the cause of hypoxia in these regions of cells. The problem is that radiation therapy needs oxygen to work and hypoxia is a major cause of radio-resistance in cancer cells. For this reason I am not convinced that saying that this is a solution to the problem is true. I think a statement like this definitely needs a quality reference to support it. However, I am open to the possibility I may be wrong... Simon Caulton (talk) 21:31, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The first bit sounds maybe okay to me.  The middle (division stopped) might be true, but it depends on the type of drug.  For example, a drug interfering with mitochondria or ribosomes should do okay in that situation.  The end seems like it might be "true, but"—one of those statements that is only true for a certain class of drugs and a certain 'idealized' situation—but even if it's true and verifiable, it feels backwards.  Surgery is the first-line, most effective treatment for invasive solid tumors, and this makes it sound like a mere adjunct used to improve chemo's results if the tumor is too large or too poorly vascularized.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: OK I have put in a bit about poor drug delivery due to poorly formed blood vessels, with a reference, into the limitations section. I haven't mentioned anything about solutions though. As for the first bit, I'm still looking for adequate references.Simon Caulton (talk) 08:20, 20 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  referenced 

message: http://www.burtongoldberg.com/home/burtongoldberg/contribution-of-chemotherapy-to-five-year-survival-rate-morgan.pdf  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.61.227 (talk) 14:17, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: The appropriateness of that paper for use in this article – and the serious concerns about the selection and interpretation of they data the authors chose to look at – came up on this talk page a couple of years ago; see Talk:Chemotherapy/Archive 1#Efficacy (2).  The 'Efficacy' section of the current article emphasizes the point that cytotoxic chemotherapy is much more useful for some types of cancer than others, but it would be unwieldy to attempt to list all of the outcomes, for all chemotherapy regimens, for all cancers, within this summary article.  We should definitely strive to include accurate and detailed information about the efficacy of chemotherapy for treatment of specific types of cancer where it will do our readers the most good: in the Wikipedia articles on those cancers. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chemo doesnt work all of the time, after the five years usually heart and kidney disease occur 

message: I added some more information to the "Dosage" section. Thank you for reviewing. And thanks for helping with my formatting!!!  News Team Assemble![talk?] 03:11, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dosage 

message: I have noticed that  has removed my PDF links so I'm here to ask why? I know if I was interested in looking at our references I'd like to be directed to the PDF of the article instead of just the PMC link as the PMC link is automatically given in the ref after "PMC". Fuse809 (talk) 18:33, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello . The  template automatically links the article title to the PMC page when a "pmc=" parameter is added in the code. Generally, full text is preferred over PDF as a link destination because not every user may want to wait for Acrobat (particularly when accessing the content from a mobile device). JFW | T@lk 09:22, 28 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Links to PDFs in PMC

message: added a huge comprehensive table that summarises almost everything there is to know about chemotherapy. Just a few questions:
* Do we need to list monoclonal antibodies and other targeted therapy here? Technically it's not chemotherapy and this might need to be moved elsewhere.
* Do we need references for the use of cladribine in multiple sclerosis? My feeling is that we should restrict ourselves to antineoplastic use.
* Some columns are sourced entirely to three sources (Australian Medicines Compendium, BNF and Goodman & Gillman). Can we be certain that the information in these columns is verifiably present in all three sources?
Otherwise nothing but praise for this! Please make sure that it gets updated when new sources become available. JFW | T@lk 10:05, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text:  Firstly, it's not Australian Medicines Compendium, it's Australian Medicines Handbook. Secondly, I also used the reviews I referenced, I just giving them as general references. I was hoping that wiki would have an antineoplastic page, as it would be more applicable to this table, but apparently not. I listed other uses as most chemotherapeutics have more than just cancer as their uses. Plus I also listed other targeted agents in this table besides monoclonal antibodies. Fuse809 (talk) 10:10, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Monoclonal antibodies might not be "technically" chemotherapy, but I think this article is becoming a bit more like "drugs of any sort used to kill cancer cells" than "small molecule drugs used to kill cancer cells", and in that case, it's okay.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:37, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table of agents 

message: Recent findings show that Papaya (carica papaya) leaf extract is working to destroy cancer cells and that is not given the way usual chemotherapy medicines are give but it is consumed orally. I want to know can that information be added in this article? Naming it oral chemotherapy? Pathare Prabhu (talk) 15:23, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: There are a few papers that describe the investigation of papaya in the treatment of cancer. This is a review paper from 2013. However there is nothing beyond anecdotal or in vitro evidence. It is not appropriate to add information about papaya to this article. (It might become appropriate in the future if secondary sources describe benefit in humans.) Axl ¤ [Talk] 20:00, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Pathare Prabhu, you could probably list the papaya leaf extract (using the 2013 review that Axl mentioned) at Experimental cancer treatments.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alternative to chemotherapy 

message: I understand the desired (mentioned in an talk archive posting) that readers refer to articles about specific cancers in order to determine efficacy, but the Wikipedia article doesn't specifically advise readers to that. And, as discussed here (I'm not suggesting this as a reliable source, just as something indicating what's out there for the general public), there is a lot of interest in the issue - relevant or not - of the effectiveness of chemotherapy. (Here's another example: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/09/16/two-percent-gambit-chemotherapy/ )
So, a suggestion: include a bit of information from the following two sources in the section:
* http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15630849
* http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15997929
On a slightly different matter, the Efficacy section also doesn't make the point that the value of chemotherapy also may depend on the stage of cancer. This article addresses that issue with respect to late-stage cancer:
* http://oncology.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2398177
-- John Broughton   (♫♫) 20:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Efficacy 

message: I've realised that there is this term "preventive chemotherapy" which is e.g. used for mass deworming. This is not mentioned on this page here which only deals with cancer treatment. Should we set up a separate page on preventive chemotherapy or have it as a chapter here? I was told by another expert: Mass drug chemotherapy in not precise, Preventrive chemotherapy is the proper definition. see http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/43545/1/9241547103_eng.pdf … see footnote page 3 of WHA resolution 6612 http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/mediacentre/WHA_66.12_Eng.pdf?ua=1 "Preventive chemotherapy means large-scale preventive treatment against helminthiases and trachoma with safe,
single-dose, quality-assured medicines. " Thoughts? EvM-Susana (talk) 23:20, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I was told that this is the best document to pick information from about preventive chemotherapy: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/43545/1/9241547103_eng.pdf (it's from 2006). EvM-Susana (talk) 09:54, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have now added a link to "preventive chemotherapy" into the hatnote; maybe that's sufficient, although it is still not clear to me if preventive chemotherapy is (i) related to antimicrobial chemotherapy and (ii) if preventive chemotherapy is also used for things other than mass deworming, e.g. for women at high risk of breast cancer.EvM-Susana (talk) 20:51, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  We need to say something about preventive chemotherapy 

message: There should not be a redirection to a page which does not mention the topic being redirected from.
38.112.155.163 (talk) 20:45, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  "chemopreventive" redirects here, but does not appear in the article text 

message: "Chemotherapy is a category of cancer treatment that uses chemical substances, especially one or more anti-cancer drugs (chemotherapeutic agents) that are given as part of a standardized chemotherapy regimen".
Defining chemotherapy as cancer treatment is incorrect. Chemotherapy literally means treatment by chemicals. It is not a cancer treatment that can be used for other purposes, as the article suggests.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/chemotherapy?s=t
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chanel-white/chemotherapy-isnt-only-for-cancer-patients_b_8673128.html?ir=Australia  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 103.7.192.124 (talk) 22:18, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition of Chemotherapy 

message: User:Hope1953 about this and this.  As i noted, the content a) makes no sense (cancer is not like bacteria); b) is sourced to a primary source c) that is written by company scientists about their products.  Please reply. Jytdog (talk) 20:30, 2 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: User:Jytdog a) I do write about resistance within an already existing 'resistance' paragraph. Just to precise, drug resistance in cancer is similar to the one in bacteria: Mutations provide advantages and resistance mechanisms share common characteristics. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3488437/
b)c) I do understand that company might not be wanted, however i do not understand why patients cannot be informed about solutions that are existing. 
I agree to discuss about changing words, but keeping deleting is not fair. Could you please re-consider your editing.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hope1953 (talk • contribs) 07:43, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: You wrote that it is "growing" problem.  It isn't; it has always been a problem. antimicrobial resistance is a growing problem as bacteria that carry the mutations that cause resistance become more widespread.  Nothing like cancer.  Nothing.  With regard to sourcing, please see WP:MEDRS.  You are using a primary source, not a literature review published in a good journal or a statement by a major medical/scientific body.   Neither the content nor the source you are trying to add to WP is OK.  that is not my deal, those are the community standards. Jytdog (talk) 07:48, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Strange, PROMO content 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Chemotherapy. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131203001320/http://www.njmonline.nl/getpdf.php?id=10000794 to http://www.njmonline.nl/getpdf.php?id=10000794
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:18, 21 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: How about something along the lines of .... "Chemotherapy is a method of killing cancerous cells by poison. It is a use of the concept that some poisons are absorbed more by cancerous cells than by normal cells.".  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.217.101.164 (talk) 07:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Perhaps a simpler lede? 

message: My tinnitus increased markedly after taking fluoroacil. Now obviosuly one POV doth not a common side-effect make, but every audiologist I have been to since tells me that that is a very common side effect of many forms of chemotherapy.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.217.101.164 (talk) 07:56, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other side-effects - tinnitus. 

message: "The term chemotherapy has come to connote non-specific usage of intracellular poisons to inhibit mitosis, cell division."
What bollocks. Can we try to be objective about this and convey correct information? 
The word "chemo" stems from the greek word "khēmeia", simply meaning chemical. Chemotherapy is just therapy based on chemical substances. Which would encompass quite a lot of treatment therapies. Chemotherapy is also used to treat parasitic infections for example. There is no need to overemphasize cancer treatment. 
Dictionary.com RhinoMind (talk) 04:09, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  What chemotherapy really is 

message: A study entitled, 'A systematic review of honey uses and its potential value within oncology care' states that  honey may be useful for controlling the many side effects of radiation therapy or chemotherapy which are used in the treatment of cancer.
 	
In another study which was published in the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health and Medical Oncology, vol. 23, no. 4, 549-552, 2006 Life-Mel Honey was found to have health benefits for Chemotherapy patients. One of the side effects of chemotherapy is Febrile neutropenia. Chemotherapy-Induced Neutropenia is treated with very expensive Colony-stimulating factors (CSFs). The study found that there was no recurrence of neutropenia after administration of Life-Mel Honey. The honey also had no side effects in the patients. The honey was also found to lower the possibility of fatal thrombocytopenia (low platelets).
Lightburst (talk) 19:35, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The Israel21c article is a popular press source and it is absolutely inappropriate to use this to make a medical claim like "the honey was found to lower the possibility of fatal thrombocytopenia", again per MEDRS,  Bardy et al. is at least a secondary source, but it is old (MEDRS recommends using sources from the last 5 years) and from a non-specialist journal. A source like this might be okay to use for basic, non-controversial claims but not for contentious ones in a broad topic area where better studies likely exist. MEDRS is very clear on our sourcing requirements for biomedical content. Spicy (talk) 19:51, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment: the latest research available on the topics were included. Question: If there is not a current publication which examines the research, is the information is dismissed? My understanding of WP:N is WP:NTEMP: once a topic is notable it is always notable. Lightburst (talk) 20:20, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: MEDRS isn't a notability guideline, it's a sourcing guideline. Just as we have higher standards for sourcing in BLPs, we have higher standards for sourcing medical content, because inaccurate medical information can cause very real harm to people. Spicy (talk) 20:26, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The Medical Oncology paper, Zidan et al, is at best a pilot study without a control group. The Guardian blog describes it rather well. As quackery. Also, though the producers say their company didn't fund the trial, that doesn't exactly exclude any other conflict of interest. Pretty much any doctor with time on their hands and honey to sell - or with a friend who has honey to sell - could produce a "study" like this; give it to a few patients, measure a few proxy outcomes. There's pretty much certain to be one that looks good. This isn't research, it is WP:PROMO. Richard Keatinge (talk) 08:34, 12 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Study regarding the use of honey in treating the side effects of chemotherapy