I was wondering how long it typically takes for ones ANC to recover after Chemotherapy?
My mom is 2 weeks out from her third round of High dose chemo, not counting her induction phase and was admitted to the hospital due to a Neutropenic fever. Monday the 14th her ANC was 0.4. This is the 2nd fever while having very low counts, and she is extremely cautious during the recovery period . Her Chest Xray is good and we are currently waiting for cultures to return.
I've been told that Chemptherapy is accumulative and each treatmemt is harder to recover from, could that be the reason as to why her counts are not recovered or are taking forever to recover?
Diagnosed January 2012 with AML all BMBX thus far have came back clean =) any info would be greatly appreciated
Reply # - May 20, 2012, 08:51 AM
Reply To: Recovery of ANC
jennu, I'm sorry your mom is dealing with fever and low blood counts on top of everything else. From what I've read from others on this site it can take months (?) for counts to recover. My husband has had a couple of transfusions (during platinum treatments) and has adapted a lower frequency of treatments during his 2nd line of treatment but thankfully no neutropenic fever. Below is a blog post by Dr. Weiss that should answer your questions about your mom's fever. I hope your mom is out of the hospital soon.
http://cancergrace.org/cancer-treatments/2011/05/11/f-n-the-side-effect…—part-1/
Reply # - May 20, 2012, 03:29 PM
Reply To: Recovery of ANC
jennu,
The extent and duration of low blood counts really depends on the disease and the regimen used. The regimens for leukemia are some of the ones that cause the most prolonged low blood counts, which can last weeks, especially if the bone marrow is damaged and slow to recover. So I'm sorry I can't give an answer, as it really varies from person to person, but we expect some of the biggest and most long-lasting difficulties with blood counts from treating leukemia and lymphoma.
Good luck.
-Dr. West