Chemotherapy Protocol
- Chemotherapy for ovarian cancer typically consists of a combination of drugs that includes a platinum-based agent such as carboplatin and a taxane medication called paclitaxel (often known by its brand name Taxol).
- In a typical treatment regimen, patients receive their medications one day every three weeks. Doctors refer to those three weeks, or 21 days, as a cycle.
- If surgery is done first, six cycles of chemotherapy are usually given afterward. If chemo is administered first, usually to shrink the cancer, three or four cycles are typically given before surgery, followed by three or four cycles after.
"The most commonly used drugs to treat ovarian cancer are a combination of a group of medications called platinum medications. The most common one of these is called carboplatin, or carbo for short," says Dr. Sharon Robertson, gynecologic oncologist with Indiana University Health. "The second group of chemotherapeutic medications is called a taxane, and the most common taxane is called paclitaxel," known by its brand name Taxol. Doctors often shorten the medication names, referring to the combination as CarboTaxol.
Read MorePARP inhibitors are drugs that work by preventing ovarian cancer cells from repairing damaged DNA, essentially causing the cancer cells to die off. Data shows that most women with ovarian cancer can benefit from PARP inhibitors at some point in their ovarian cancer journey, though the drugs work better if a woman has the BRCA mutation.
"There are certain cases where these medications are more or less appropriate, and that would be a decision that you would make with your GYN or medical oncology doctor," Robertson says.
Typically, if patients have surgery up front, they'll have at least six cycles, or six infusions, of their chemotherapy medications after surgery. "If we decide that chemotherapy should be given first (usually to shrink the cancer) we generally use about three to four cycles of chemo prior to a patient's surgery, and then, similarly, another three to four cycles of the same chemotherapy" after their surgery has been completed.
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