I believe that most chemotherapy agents lower the white blood count & may cause neutropenia. I had taxotere/carboplatin & then topotecan & both rounds of chemo caused this count drop. For topotecan, I gave myself daily injections of Neupegen after each treatment& that kept the count elevated.
Hi There,
It sounds like your friend has been through so much! It may be that at this point chemotherapy will only harm her. The best measure of how a person will do and what is their prognosis is something called "performance status" It goes like this:
PS = 0 going to work, no symptoms
PS = 1 working, performing all activities of daily living but some minor symptoms, pain, fatigue
PS = 2 not able to work. Able to move around the house, get dressed every day. But more pain and fatigue
PS = 3 not getting dressed most days, gets out of bed but mostly has to rest for the majority of the day. Very disabled from symptoms
PS = 4 not getting out of bed at all
Your friend sounds like her PS is a 3. With all the high tech tests going around, it may seem surprising how predictive this simple assessment is. But people with a PS of 3 or 4 do not benefit from chemo. It makes much more sense to focus on comfort measures, best supportive care. It is very hard to accept that But actually chemo in this setting can shorten a person's life by the complications of dehydration from diarrhea, vomiting, sepsis from low counts, bleeding from low counts.
take care