Management of extravasation of chemotherapeutic agents

Extravasation of chemotherapeutic agents can potentially cause severe skin damage such as ulceration, resulting in a dramatic decrease in quality of life in patients receiving chemotherapy. Although guidelines for treating extravasation were published in Japan a few years ago, practical procedures on how to deal with it, have not been presented in the guidelines yet due to a lack of supporting evidence. Therefore, each hospital should provide its own procedures to manage the extravasation of chemotherapeutic agents. We describe here the treatment of extravasation by topical injection of steroids. We have never experienced significant skin damage in patients after treatment with topical steroid injections.