Nursing Pharmacology Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia

Question:-

James, a 3-year-old, has been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and will begin receiving chemotherapy with the mitotic inhibitor teniposide (Vumon) and the alkylating agent cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan) in the morning.

What special considerations are needed for a child James age who will receive chemotherapy?

Answer:-

While caring for James, it is very necessary to take the temperature of the child if he is feeling warm, having the chills, or does not feel or look well. The fever must be treated as a medical emergency. The fever can be the only sign of an infection. Administration of the setup is one of the most important things that should be done for making sure that chemotherapy is given with utmost safety allowing for prompt nursing intervention if there is any adverse infiltration or reaction.

Ms. Smith may need a PET scan. This test is done in order to check whether the tissues and cells are working properly after chemotherapy. Cancerous cells possess a higher rate of metabolism. Due to such a high level of chemical activity, bright spots are shown by the cancer cells on PET scans (Largent et al., 2020). Hence, PET scans are quite helpful to detect cancer as well as to see if the cancer is spreading and treatment is working. It also helps to check the recurrence of cancer.

Mrs Smith need to avoid alcohol completely as well as she needed to change her regular diet. As the susceptibility towards the immunity and the infection got increased she need to avoid people and stay quarantined (Visuri et al., 2016). In this state, as Mrs. Smith have to take capecitabine, it leads to the excessive bleeding followed by anaemia. She also need to avoid the exposure to the sun.