eli5: Why cant they anesthetize chemo patients so they don’t feel the pain from chemotherapy?
In: Biology
It’s all about risk vs benefit.
Chemo is often given in cycles over the course of months or weeks. For example you’ll have a dose every 2 weeks for 2 months. If you were to anaesthetise someone for 2 months you would be putting them at so much risk. For example:
You would need a ventilator because you would be unconscious and unable to breath for yourself. This would put you at risk of chest infections too. Being 6 ventilated for such a long time also increases the likelihood of weakening your cough reflex – which causes problems for when they want to wean you off the ventilator. Imagine not being able to cough to clear your own secretions… You will get more chest infections.
Anasthesia is also known to lower your blood pressure. So you would need continuous IV medications to keep the blood pressure up. In order to have these medications you would need to have a large IV line inserted into a big vein in your neck, or your groin…. which would also add an extra risk of infection.
You’re also unable to pee for yourself when unconscious, so would need a catheter – another source of possible infection.
With regards to nutrition – you could be fed through a tube in your nose that goes into your stomach… However, when you’re on those special blood pressure IV medication it tends to slow your gut down. This means that your body stops absorbing the feed that you’re getting through the tube in your nose, and so you loose your much needed calories. To get over this, you could have nutrition into the vein (through that large IV line in your neck). But of course, this carries a greater risk of infection again. Also, if you’re getting IV nutrition then you’re not using your gut so this will cause problems in the long run. Also, during this time you will not be eating naturally and so you will weaken your swallow muscles, which makes it hard for you to return to normal way of eating afterwards.
You’re also at risk of getting bed sores, you guessed it – another risk of infection and also painful.
You’re also not moving, so your muscles will waste away too. So imagine waking up after having all of the above over the course of your chemotherapy.. You will be so weak, you may have battled many infections and now you have to undergo intensive physio rehab to learn how to walk again, and you have to learn how to eat again…
On top of that, chemotherapy is known to lower the immune system. So putting a person at risk of all these above infections that I mentioned when you know they’re not going to be very strong anyways is just not worth the risk.
And not to mention the cost of all of this too
The risk by far outweighs the benefit!
Latest Answers