Chemotherapy induced neurotoxicity

Abstract

Lately, the focus of chemotherapy has become not only treating cancer but also maintaining patients' quality of life. Drugs used in chemotherapy can cause damage and toxicity in normal cells as well as cancer cells. The degree of damage could cause dose limiting toxicity and may become one of the reasons of cessation of chemotherapy. Neurotoxicity causes numbness of hands and legs which may continue to cause patients' suffering for a long time after the treatment. At present, the cause of neurotoxicity induced by chemotherapy is not clear, but it is urgent to prevent, identify and treat as early as possible. Methods for symptom management to relieve such patients' suffering needs to be developed as soon as possible.