About Chemotherapy: Good News For Cancer Patients

Cancer is decimating, not just in the physical sense but also psychologically. Cancer patients have to go through a lot of medications and chemotherapeutic treatments, and while these are effective, they can be severely damaging to the body as well. According to EurekAlert, oncologists from U.S and Canada's 37 hospitals have conducted a study to prevent hearing loss from chemotherapy.

Doctor David R. Freyer, Director of the Survivorship and Supportive Care Program in the Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases at Children's Hospital Los Angeles said that the study is vital to creating a solution for patients and improving the quality of their lives. Cisplatin is used widely in chemotherapeutic treatments for cancer, and the research has proved that the hearing loss induced by Cisplatin can be reduced, Freyer added.

The results showed that those patients who were treated with Cisplatin and sodium thiosulfate had a considerable reduction in hearing loss. Results also revealed that the efficacy of cisplatin to treat tumors was not compromised by the addition of sodium thiosulfate.

Young children under the age of five were the most affected by Cisplatin regarding hearing loss, but surprisingly they benefitted most from the sodium thiosulfate combined chemotherapy. Sodium thiosulfate is antioxidant and been used in previous tests on animals to prevent Cisplatin-induced hearing loss.

The results were promising in the patients, but more research is required to use sodium thiosulfate in a more appropriate way to overcome the ototoxicity of Cisplatin. US National Cancer Institute funded the research.

The study was published in the online oncology journal, The Lancet. Lancet has been publishing researches and finding to provide helpful insight to the families of Cancer patients. Past researches on sodium thiosulfate's effectivity have also been published in the journal.