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Chemotherapy Treatment
St. Jude uses state-of-the-art chemotherapy to treat cancer and other diseases with as few side effects as possible.
Chemotherapy treatment at St. Jude
Chemotherapy (chemo) uses medicines to kill specific cells. It is often used to treat cancer, but it can also be used for bone marrow diseases and immune system disorders.
Decades of research and treatment of cancer and disease at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have helped increase the survival rates of children with cancer. We have extensive experience in using the latest chemotherapy treatments for children, teens, and young adults.
Learn more about the diseases we treat and our innovative clinical trials.
Children may be eligible to come to St. Jude to take part in pioneering research on new chemotherapy medicines and treatment plans.
Diseases treated with chemotherapy at St. Jude
Along with cancer, St. Jude uses chemotherapy to treat:
- Bone marrow diseases and to prepare patients for bone marrow (stem cell) transplants
- Immune system disorders
Because chemo travels through the blood, it is called a systemic treatment. That means it affects the whole body. Chemo can affect cells in a tumor as well as other cells moving through the blood or lymph system.
Why St. Jude for chemotherapy?
The chemotherapy treatments available in St. Jude clinical trials are experimental. That means that certain cancers or diseases may respond to these treatments differently than other standard treatments.
Treatment centers where your child can receive chemo
The place your child gets chemotherapy depends on the way they receive it. These are the places you’ll talk about with your child’s team:
- At a treatment center, like St. Jude
- In a hospital or clinic as an outpatient
- In a doctor’s office
- At home
If your child takes part in a clinical trial, it may be possible to get chemotherapy closer to home while your St. Jude team continues to guide your child’s care. If you’re interested in this option, bring it up with your child’s treatment team.
What to expect during your visit
Chemotherapy varies based on the medicine involved. Your child may receive chemotherapy as:
- A pill or liquid they swallow
- An injection in their muscle or under their skin
- Intravenously (IV), through a vein. Most patients receive IV chemotherapy.
Setting up an IV
To set up an IV, a small needle is inserted in the forearm or hand. The needle is attached to a tiny tube. It is similar to how your child may have given blood for tests.
The chemotherapy medicines are inside a plastic bag that hangs on a pole. The pole holding the medicine bag needs to be higher than your child so that the medicine flows naturally down from the bag, through the IV tube, and into the veins.
Preparation for chemotherapy
You will work with the treatment team about your child’s care. Take the time you need to understand your choices. Here are questions to discuss with your care team:
- Would my child benefit from a catheter or port? These are small, hollow soft-plastic tubes that stay under the skin. They let your child get IV medicines without needle sticks for blood draws and IVs day after day.
- What type of catheter will my child have? Catheters differ based on where they are placed, how they are used and how to keep them clean.
- How will the catheter be inserted?
- Does my child need other tests or treatment before chemotherapy starts?
Your child's chemotherapy schedule
Your child’s cancer specialist will set the schedule based on the type of cancer or disease your child has, the chemotherapy agents involved and how the medicines affect the tumor and your child. The treatment team will explain:
- About how long each treatment will take
- How many days in a row your child will have chemotherapy
- How many “rest” days there will be between your child’s treatments
- How many treatment cycles your child will have. One cycle is the number of days in a row your child gets chemotherapy added to the number of rest days between chemotherapy treatments
Chemotherapy side effects
Medicines can sometimes cause side effects. Side effects are usually unpleasant reactions to the medicine. Chemotherapy drugs, for instance, don’t just kill cancer cells. They kill all rapidly growing cells, even when that fast growth is normal, such as hair cells.
Different children may respond to medicine differently. The side effects your child has may not be the same as those of another child who is taking the same drugs.
Common questions your child’s health care team can answer include:
- What are the most common side effects?
- How soon will they probably begin?
- What can I help my child feel better?
- Can the doctor prescribe something to ease the side effects?
- How long will the side effects last?
- Are there uncommon but serious side effects?
- Are there possible long-term effects from the chemo?
How to keep your child healthy during chemo
Having cancer makes your child more likely to get infections. Chemotherapy increases the chance even more. Even a common cold can pose a serious risk. Do your best to follow infection prevention steps. Follow these guidelines while you are at the hospital and at home.
If any of the guidelines do not make sense to you or you do not understand something, ask anyone on your child’s treatment team.
Chemotherapy clinical trials
Study goal:
The main goal of this study is to test the safety of selpercatinib in children and adolescents with solid tumors or brain and spinal cord tumors. Researchers also want to learn how the drug affects cancer in children and the best, most effective dose.
Diagnosis:
Age:
6 months to 21 years old
Study goal:
The purpose of this clinical trial is to find better treatments for NRSTS patients who are intermediate- and high-risk. Our goal is to lower the risk of the tumor coming back after treatment, while using treatments with fewer risks of long-term side effects.
Diagnosis:
Non-rhabdomyosarcoma soft tissue sarcoma, adipocytic neoplasm, liposarcoma, synovial sarcoma, MPNST, undifferentiated sarcoma
Age:
Up to 30 years old.
Study goal:
The main goal of this study is to see how tailored treatments affect LCH in children and adolescents.
Diagnosis:
Age:
Younger than 18 years old
Study goal:
The main goal of this study is to test new experimental drugs in hopes of finding a treatment that may work against tumors that have come back or that have not responded to standard therapy in children, adolescents and young adults.
Diagnosis:
Age:
12 months to 30 years old
Study goal:
Watch patients with low-risk germ cell tumors, after tumor removal, treats their tumor as well as if they got the usual treatment of chemotherapy and/or more surgery if needed.
Diagnosis:
Age:
Standard Risk Group 1: less than 11 years old; Standard risk Group 2: ages 11–25
Study goal:
Find the highest dose of cabozantinib that can be given safely along with MAP chemotherapy; compare the effects of cabozantinib along with MAP and surgery versus MAP and surgery alone to find out which is better.
Diagnosis:
Age:
Less than 40 years old
Study goal:
To find out if adding venetoclax to standard chemotherapy leads to improved survival for children and young adults with relapsed AML.
Diagnosis:
Age:
29 days old to 21 years old
Study goal:
The purpose of this study is to find out if accelerated chemotherapy will treat germ cell tumors as well as standard. We will also see if both treatments have similar side effects and are well tolerated.
Diagnosis:
Age:
Ages 11–45 years
Study goal:
Study the side effects of using venetoclax and chemotherapy to treat children with AML; learn more about how this treatment works
Diagnosis:
Age:
Older than 28 days and younger than 22 years
Study goal:
Compare the effects of giving less chemotherapy drugs to people with VLR-RMS, who do not have the MYOD1 or TP53 mutation, to find out which is better; to find out how well people with LR-RMS, without MYOD1 or TP53 mutations, respond to standard chemotherapy, and to see the effects of giving chemotherapy drugs for a longer amount of time. We want to see if patients with RMS and the MYOD1 or TP53 mutation benefit from longer therapy than the shorter treatment we give to VLR or LR patients.
Diagnosis:
Age:
Up to 21 years old
Study goal:
The main goal of this study is to learn about the good and bad side effects of inotuzumab ozogamicin in children with this type of leukemia and to find out how well the drug works to get rid of the disease.
Diagnosis:
Age:
Younger than 22 years old
Study goal:
The main goal of this research study is to help us learn how to better treat pain and symptoms in children going through chemotherapy cancer treatment.
Diagnosis:
ALL, AML, carcinoma, endocrine tumors, lymphoma, melanoma, neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, Ewing sarcoma, osteosarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, sarcomas
Age:
8 to 18 years old
Study goal:
This study will help us understand the effects of CPX-351 treatment in patients with MDS and AML.
Diagnosis:
Age:
1-22 years old
Study goal:
The main goal of this study is to see if this approach can reduce treatment-related late effects in children and young adults with Hodgkin lymphoma.
Diagnosis:
Age:
21 years or younger (low-risk patients)
25 years or younger (high-risk patients)
Study goal:
The main goals of this study are to test the safety of venetoclax and selinexor and find the highest dose that is safe to give when combined with chemotherapy drugs. Researchers also want to find out about any side effects and learn how the treatment affects your body.
Diagnosis:
Age:
30 years or younger
Study goal:
This study uses a risk-directed approach to find out which types of treatment will work best and have the fewest side effects for infants and children with medulloblastoma.
Diagnosis:
Age:
Birth to 5 years old
Study goal:
To find the most effective treatment for each risk group of rhabdomyosarcoma patients
Diagnosis:
Age:
Up to 21 years old
Study goal:
To see if savolitinib is safe and tolerable in children with brain tumors
Diagnosis:
Medulloblastoma, high-grade glioma (HGG), diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)
Age:
Between 5 years old and 21 years old
Study goal:
The main goal of this study is to test the experimental drug mirdametinib in hopes of finding a treatment that may be effective against low-grade glioma brain tumors in children, adolescents and young adults.
Diagnosis:
Age:
At least 2 years old and younger than 25 years old.
Study goal:
The main purpose of this study is to find the highest, safest dose of CBL0137 that can be given to children, teens and young adults with solid tumors or lymphoma.
Diagnosis:
Age:
12 months to 21 years old with diagnosis of relapsed or refractory solid tumor or lymphoma (including CNS tumors) or progressive or recurrent DIPG or other H3 K27M-mutant diffuse midline gliomas previously treated with radiation therapy; 12 months to 30 years old with diagnosis of relapsed or refractory osteosarcoma
Study goal:
To find out whether adding dinutuximab with chemotherapy, early in treatment, treats high-risk neuroblastoma better than adding it later with chemotherapy.
Diagnosis:
Neuroblastoma or ganglioneuroblastoma
Age:
Up to 30 years old
Study goal:
To find the safest dose of imetelstat that can be given with fludarabine and cytarabine to stop the growth of cancer cells.
Diagnosis:
Acute myeloid leukemia, myelodysplastic syndromes, juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia
Age:
Between 12 months and 18 years old
Study goal:
To find the best dose of SNDX-5613 to use along with chemotherapy for young patients with KMT2A-R leukemia
Diagnosis:
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL); acute leukemia of ambiguous lineage (ALAL); mixed phenotype acute leukemia (MPAL); or acute myeloid leukemia (AML) that was previously ALL, ALAL, or MPAL with a KMT2A gene rearrangement
Age:
1 month to 5 years old
Study goal:
To find out what effects adding nivolumab to chemotherapy has on people with newly diagnosed NPC.
Diagnosis:
Nasopharyngeal carcinoma
Age:
21 years old or younger
Study goal:
To find out how a new vincristine dosing method affects drug levels in the blood in infants and young children as compared to older children; to learn if genetics influences vincristine drug levels in the blood
Diagnosis:
Newly diagnosed or relapsed cancer
Age:
Up to 12 years old
Study goal:
To study the effects of talazoparib and chemotherapy for treating relapsed or refractory acute myeloid leukemia and acute myeloid leukemia of ambiguous lineage and to find the best dose for children and young adults.
Diagnosis:
Acute myeloid leukemia, acute leukemia of ambiguous lineage
Age:
Up to age 21