Chemotherapy for a brain tumour

Chemotherapy uses anti-cancer drugs to destroy cancer cells. These drugs affect the way cancer cells grow and divide, but they also affect normal cells.

Your doctor will tell you if chemotherapy might be helpful for you. Side effects of drugs may vary. Your doctor will talk to you about the risks, benefits and side effects of having chemotherapy. If you decide to have chemotherapy, your treatment team will explain the side effects and give you a chance to ask questions.

Having chemotherapy may depend on:

• the type, grade and biomarkers of a tumour
• how effective other treatments have been
• your general health and fitness.

During chemotherapy, your doctor and nurse will check how you are. You will have follow-up brain scans to check whether treatment is working.

Macmillan is here to support you. If you would like to talk, you can:

• Call the Macmillan Support Line for free on 0808 808 00 00.
• Chat to our specialists online.
• Visit our chemotherapy forum to talk with people who have had chemotherapy, share your experience, and ask an expert your questions.

There are different ways of giving chemotherapy for brain tumours.

Temozolomide, lomustine and procarbazine are capsules you swallow. Vincristine is a liquid that is given into a vein (intravenously).

You usually take chemotherapy capsules at home. Your doctor, nurse or pharmacist will tell you how and when to take them. You may be asked to take them for a certain number of days or weeks, with a rest period of a few weeks.

Intravenous chemotherapy is given in a chemotherapy day unit. A chemotherapy nurse will give it to you as 1 or more sessions of treatment. You usually have a rest period of a few weeks between each session.

Each session of chemotherapy is called a cycle. The length of the cycle depends on the chemotherapy drug. The number of cycles you have will depend on your tumour type and your individual situation.

For example, PCV is given for 10 days every 6 weeks. Temozolomide capsules are usually taken for 5 days every 4 weeks.

Rarely, a chemotherapy drug called carmustine is given as an implant called Gliadel wafers. This is put directly into the brain during surgery.

Your doctor, nurse or pharmacist will explain what chemotherapy you might have and what to expect.

If you have a high-grade glioma (glioblastoma), you may have temozolomide and radiotherapy together. This means you take temozolomide capsules every day during your course of radiotherapy. The radiotherapy usually lasts 3 to 6 weeks.

Having both treatments may cause more side effects, so you need to be physically well enough to cope. You also have more risk of getting a chest infection. To help with this, your doctor will prescribe antibiotics.

When you finish radiotherapy, you will also stop taking temozolomide for a time. You then start taking temozolomide again for up to 6 cycles. You usually take it for 5 days every 4 weeks. Your doctor or nurse will explain how often you need to take it.