The downside of immunotherapy is the potential for immune related adverse events, in which your overactive immune system attacks healthy organs and causes inflammation in the lungs, skin, liver, intestines and or endocrine
While immunotherapy is often less severe than chemotherapy, the side effects from immunotherapy can also be severe or even fatal.
Although rare, immunotherapy can also cause severe, life threatening inflammation of organs, including heart inflammation also known as myocarditis.
Flu like symptoms like fatigue, fever, chills and muscle aches are also common side effects of immunotherapy and immunotherapy does not work for everyone, with overall response rates of 15 percent to 20 percent and it may take longer to see results when compared to conventional treatments like chemotherapy.
Immunotherapy is often more expensive than chemotherapy as well and autoimmune like reactions, such as colitis, diarrhea, abdominal pain, pneumonitis, cough, shortness of breath, hepatitis and thyroid dysfunction can also occur when on immunotherapy.
Chemo is often harder on the body than immunotherapy as chemo can feel harsher initially due to widespread effects like hair loss and severe nausea, although these symptoms often resolve after treatment.
Immunotherapy can be gentler on the body, although the immune related effects like autoimmune like reactions can also be severe and unpredictable and affect organs.
Immunotherapy works by boosting your immune system to fight cancer.
The common side effects of immunotherapy are skin rash, fatigue, diarrhea, inflammation in the organs like the liver and lungs due to immune system activation.
The side effects of immunotherapy can also appear later, and sometimes weeks or months after you start the immunotherapy and they can be longer lasting.
Chemotherapy works by targeting all rapidly dividing cells, including the cancer cells including the cancer cells and the healthy cells like hair cells, gut cells and bone marrow cells.
Common side effects of chemotherapy include nausea, hair loss, vomiting, fatigue and increased risk of infections.
The side effects from chemotherapy often appear quickly, but also often subside after treatment with chemotherapy ends.
Chemo will extend life for weeks, months or even years, but it depends on the type of cancer, the stage of cancer, like early stage often better than Stage IV, the persons health, and response to treatment.
Early stage cancers like I-III usually see significant life extension, which can be months or years, with chemo and Stage IV or metastatic cancers may see shorter gains in their life expectancy of weeks to months.
A persons age, overall health and fitness and the persons ability to tolerate treatment also impacts the outcomes and life expectancy of chemo treatments and also combining of chemo with surgery or radiation can also improve the outcomes and life expectancy of cancer patients.
And how well the cancer responds or shrinks or stops growing after a few cycles of chemical like 1 to 2 cycles also further guides the treatment.
Oncologists will stop treatment for the cancer when the benefits no longer outweigh the side effects of the cancer treatment or if the cancer stops responding to the treatment.
Oncologists will also stop cancer treatments if the patient chooses to prioritize their quality of life over the aggressive cancer treatments, and often transition to hospice care or palliative care for comfort, especially if the end of their life is approaching.
Although cancer treatments can be open ended for years in advanced cases, if the cancer treatments are tolerated well.
But decisions on stopping the cancer treatments also involve balancing of cancer control, managing the symptoms, goals of the patient receiving the cancer treatments and potential harm.
Guidelines sometimes recommend stopping chemotherapy treatments near the end of life to prevent suffering.
The main reasons to stop cancer treatments include.
If the cancer is not shrinking, is growing or spreading or treatments offer minimal extension to life expectancy.
Or if the side effects of the cancer treatments outweigh the benefits, like having fatigue, pain, organ damage, which can diminish the persons quality of life more than the treatment helps them.
Or if the patient getting the cancer treatments decides, that they'd rather focus on comfort and time with their family than enduring further cancer treatments.
And if the cancer becomes more advanced and incurable, an oncologist and patient may decide to stop the cancer treatment.
When the cancer treatments might continue include.
In advanced and metastatic cancer, if the treatment controls the cancer and the patient tolerates the cancer treatments well, which can potentially be for years.
Or in planned, limited durations like months, before or after surgery.