Read patient experiences with the antibiotic drug, bleomycin, used in chemotherapy. For medical information on bleomycin, check with your doctor.

Background: Bleomycin is usually given by injection to treat several cancers, including (but not limited to): cervical, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and testicular cancers¹.

“I got ABVD chemo for the first two cycles, which was four rounds. For the rest of the eight treatments, it was just the AVD.

They took out the B drug (bleomycin) because my PET scan after the first four treatments showed that I had no evidence of disease. They were able to take out the bleomycin since it can be hard on your lungs.”

→ Lia S., Read Full Story

“I think the nausea got a little better without the bleomycin, but it was still pretty killer. One less medicine is always a relief.”

→ Mara T., Read Full Story

“My doctor is very much into clinical trials and research at a global scale. When I was going through treatment, he had just learned of a study that realized that if you pull bleomycin, the B in “ABVD,” halfway through your infusion schedule, it really has no effect on the remission rate.”

→ CC Webster, Read Full Story

“What impressed me about my new oncologist’s unique approach to this standard treatment was its dynamicity. It involved a mid-treatment PET/CT scan to determine if it was possible to downgrade the chemo regimen from the classic ABVD to a less intense AVD, thereby dropping the “B” (bleomycin) after just one of the six cycles.

Bleomycin is one of those nasty chemo drugs that can have detrimental long-term effects on your lungs. The less of it your body has to endure, the better, and his treatment approach was very mindful of that.”

→ Nicole M., Read Full Story

“Typically, anyone who is diagnosed with testicular cancer and needs chemo goes on the BEP regimen. Each cycle takes three weeks, and it’s three cycles, so it’s nine weeks.

However, after the first cycle, I had complications with the Bleomycin in my lungs. That’s not uncommon. Since I had those complications, they had to stop that particular chemo drug and continue with an extra two rounds of the EP.”

→ Hugo T., Read Full Story