Is there a difference between Induction chemo and plain old chemo treatments? I keep reading the term induction chemo and I'm not sure what it means. Thanks, Amy

Hello Amy always a pleasure, I wish your husband john well. I could not get in touch with my ob-gyn to awnser this so I will take a crack at this myself. Induction therapy is usually the primary treatment where they throw the heavy artilery at you and try to erradicate as many cancer cells as possible.n While many head and neck cancer patients will have ADJUVANT CHEMO which is in addition to another primary treatment like radiation and/or surgery.

Thanks, Mark- I'm sure your Doc was busy delivering a 10 lb. bouncing baby girl:D , so I'll take your answer. Since John's chemo has come after surgery- after radiation- and after recurrence surgery- I guess his is termed "last ditch chemo". Just trying to keep the vernacular straight. Amy

Amy, First I want to say I,m sorry to hear John has had a reccurrence. I, as you know are new to the sight and John has realized everyones worst fear, it coming back.I don't know how effective chemo is but when they found my cancer it was after 4 months of me complaining about swollen lymph nodes in my neck. With my blood counts extremely low because of my leukemia treatments they just felt I had an infection. After the removal of the one infected lymphnode I was diagnosed with SCC poorly differentiated. My MRI showed 3 other lymphnodes. Because I had 3 young children and what I felt the tremendous odds of trying to survive 2 cancers with both giving me 30-50 % rates, I opted that I did not want surgery ND. Today as I type this Post I,m looking at a picture of my 3 kids. My oldest girl recently left for college and my 2 boys are phsyced because dad can pick them up from school today and take them to football practice and my wife "told" me to finish the laundry and vacuum the house. Today is my 7 yr anniversary from NPC cancer. "Normalcy is a wonderful state to be in." I wish you and John the very best.
Mark .

If you got the laundry done faster, you could take your wife out on that date You sound like a pretty amazing guy with a great family. It's very nice that you have joined us. Amy

Here's the definition I found:

Induction therapy
Use of conventional (standard-dose) chemotherapy prior to a stem cell transplant in order to reduce the tumor burden.

Thanks, Gary- like I said -Duhhh- I did some looking too and got just about as helpful information- don't know anyone here who got a stem cell transplant. But I have seen "Induction chemo" posted alot here, so I was curious. Maybe Tom can get a defination that applies to Head and Neck cancer that we can relate to. Mark D's answer made sense to me. And I appreciated his post because I know he is busy doing the laundry. Amy

Amy - So far I have TWO variations on this one. Induction chemo is a drug or combination of drugs that will attack the tumor, causing it to react in a manner that makes it more vulnerable to the next chemo plan. Induction can be one or many sessions, but is a chemical scheme to "induce" the cancer to react in a particular manner - making it more vulnerable.

And, 2nd, induction chemo implies a 'trial run' of the key drug, "inducing" the physical and blood chemistry reactions to it. With this info the Onc can structure the remaining chemo for maximum impact on the tumor while minimizing physical symptoms.

I have seen the first definition, and variations of it most often. Both come from non-medical material so consume at your own risk....! I really DO want an accurate definition for this one for our Glossary. (the book is coming along nicely by the way! Char and I are excited!) Be strong, Tom J

Amy when i went into the hospital for my leukemia treatment my protocol was induction therapy where I stayed in the hospital and received chemo usually for about a month. Then I was going to have a bone marrow transplant, Luckily I did not have the BMT because I would have a full body radiation which would have negatively impacted how they could have treated my future head anf neck tx. I then went into the next phase of 6 months of conventional chemo followed by 1 or 2 yrs of maintenance chemo. How this applies to the h&n tx I,m not sure. Hope your taking care of yourself.

The above is interesting. Thanks, Tom. Mark, did your chemo drugs change with each phase ? Amy