Stem Cell Transplant Side Effects
- The high-dose chemotherapy you get before a stem cell transplant can cause serious side effects
- Because this treatment destroys infection-fighting white blood cells, there is a risk that you might get sick
- High-dose chemotherapy can also damage organs such as your heart or lungs, and possibly contribute to a second cancer down the road
High-dose chemotherapy followed by a stem cell transplant treats cancer more effectively than standard therapies. But it’s also an intense treatment that can be hard on your body.
Read MoreGetting Sick
“I think the most important one is the risk of infections,” Dr. Costello says. “Throughout this process we are going to really take away your immune system.” The massive doses of chemotherapy you get to treat your cancer target rapidly dividing cells in your body. Cancer cells divide quickly, but so do the white blood cells that protect you from infections.Until your new stem cells start to grow and replenish your white blood cells, you’ll be vulnerable to infections that wouldn’t have been a threat to you before. An illness that would have caused only mild symptoms in the past can suddenly become serious. “A small cold or a virus or a bacterial infection…can be very significant for a person without an immune system,” Dr. Costello says.
She stresses that you’re only at risk for a short period of time. “Realistically, your immune system will be severely weakened probably for about a week-long period.” However, your new immune cells may not be fully up to speed for six weeks or more.
During this time you’ll need to be extra careful about avoiding infections. Carefully consider who you allow near you. Make sure they’re healthy, and have them wear a mask and gloves so they don’t get you sick. You’ll also need to be extra careful when preparing food to avoid foodborne illnesses.
Your doctor might put you on a preventive course of antibiotics to keep you healthy. And your medical team will monitor you very carefully for signs of infection, such as a fever, cough, shortness of breath, or diarrhea. If you do get sick, your doctor will be more aggressive than usual about treating the infection, Dr. Costello says.
Other Chemotherapy Side Effects
A few side effects are pretty standard for any chemotherapy, including:
- Nausea and vomiting
- Fatigue
- Mouth sores
- Hair loss
- Easy bruising and bleeding
- Constipation or diarrhea
Then there are the more serious side effects. High-dose chemotherapy can damage organs such as your heart, lungs, kidneys, or liver. That’s why your doctor will do a careful health assessment beforehand, to make sure that your organs can withstand this intense treatment.
“Before we do all this, we need to understand if you could tolerate some weakening of your heart, should that happen, or of your lungs or kidneys,” Dr. Costello tells SurvivorNet.
A Future Cancer
Ironically, some of the chemotherapy drugs used to treat cancer can cause a second cancer down the road. The cancers that are most often linked to chemotherapy are myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The higher the dose of chemotherapy you receive and the longer you take it, the greater your cancer risk becomes.
Your medical team will be vigilant for signs of a new cancer. “We’ll be monitoring you for other forms of cancers that this chemotherapy could have potentially caused,” Dr. Costello says. They will carefully follow you for many years, so that if you do develop another cancer, they can catch and treat it quickly.
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