Home chemotherapy in the Department of surgery, Higashi Sapporo Hospital

It is widely accepted that home chemotherapy improves the quality of life (QOL) of patients. Its purpose is to prevent the growth of the tumor rather than to reduce it is size, that is long NC, and to lessen the symptoms. The most important thing is side-effect-free treatment, because the patient is usually in the home. For this reason, the patient him/herself must be familiar with the side effects and emergency situations. Evaluation of home chemotherapy is very difficult, because the amount of anticancer drug is reduced or optimized for the individual patient. Thus, evaluation depends not only on tumor size, but also on QOL, lessening of symptoms, satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the treatment, and the philosophy of life of patients. This approach is being put to greater and greater use to maintain the QOL of patients, and to reduce the hospital costs. In the future, new anticancer drugs that have fewer side effects and stronger anticancer action are desirable.