Cancer Treatment Options Forum - August 21st, 2010 - 3 Comments
Is BCG treatment for bladder cancer considered to be Chemo?
My friend insists she had chemo for bladder cancer. It was BCG therapy. Is this considered to be chemo?
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nope. its immunotherapy i think not sure.
Agree with Jaggs. BCG is not a "chemotherapy" in the sense of the word we use today.
BCG is a live attenuated tuberculosis vaccine that, when injected into the bladder, causes an immune reaction that helps to attack superficial bladder cancer, and in many cases, can cause superficial bladder cancer to regress.
Well, I’m not sure what difference the semantics make, but the BCG treatment alone, without any other agents, isn’t really chemotherapy. It’s a localized irritant (it works by causing enough irritation that the lining of the bladder actually sloughs off, getting rid of anything on the surface, such as a very superficial malignancy) rather than systemic agent, and it’s biological in nature, rather than pharmacological.
But like I said, it’s just a word, there may be some people who refer to it as chemotherapy out there, and what you call it doesn’t change a thing about what it is.