Medical Physics and Biophysics

Introduction: Anemia is a common complication of myelo-suppressive chemotherapy. Severe anemia is usually treated with red blood cell transfusion, however, mild-to-moderate anemia most often are managed conservatively. There is no universally established benchmark of hemoglobin of patients selected for cancer chemotherapy to inform a global best practice and increase patients treatment outcome and quality of life.

 

Objective: The objective of this study is to examine the change in Hb level of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy using serial Hb measurement.

 

Materials & Methods: A total of 100 voluntary patients with solid malignancies were recruited within a period of eight months. Baseline demographic characteristics and type of tumors were obtained. Pre-treatment Hb level was measured on first day of consultation and repeated every 2 weeks during the therapy until after three consecutive Hb readings.

 

Results & Analysis: Data collected was analyzed using SPSS version 10. Out of the 100 cancer patients, 88% were female. Breast 68% (68) was commonest site of tumour. Prevalence of anemia in the study was 72%, and majority of patients had their Hb at the end of therapy within the range of 9.60 g/dl to 10.62 g/dl. At P-value>0.05, there was no statistical significance on distribution of mean hemoglobin, standard deviation based on sex and treatment type.

 

Conclusion/Recommendation: Chemotherapy has no significant effect on Hb especially in patients with high baseline Hb level between 11 g/dl to 12 g/dl in our study. Prevalence of anemia in the studied patients was 72%. We recommend a benchmark of Hb of 11 g/dl minimum for any patient being selected for chemotherapy in Nigeria