Just 10 days after the operation, her doctor gave her the chemical therapy again, and planned it to 6 times( not include the therapy before operation), but this time, the side effect is much serious: she can not even walk for 4 days because of the pain of the right leg.

I wonder what is the appropriate treatment of the chemical therapy? I am worry about the side effect could do more harm to the health of my mum.

I am from China, my English is not good enough at the medical terms. I hope any kind people can understand what I mean.

It is good news that the chemotherapy before surgery ("neoadjuvant" chemo) was effective, and that the lymph nodes were negative.

The number of cycles of chemotherapy varies according to the type of drugs used and how often the doses are given. A typical basic chemotherapy regime
(without neoadjuvant chemo) is eight cycles, four of something like Adriamycin+Cytoxan and four of something like Taxotere, given every three weeks. Some oncologists may vary this a bit, either due to national or personal preferences or as participation in clinical trials of different regimes, or due to new guidelines being taken up.

There are total lifetime dose limits for several of the drugs due to damage they do to other body tissues, as well as short term limits due to side effects such as anaemia and loss of disease immunity. The regime and doses chosen depend on the patient's body weight and any known responses to specific drugs as well as these limits.

Generally the idea is to give the maximum dose allowed by short term factors, for a duration of six months. It has been shown that continuing chemotherapy beyond six months gives little benefit, is not worth the increasing side effects.

I am not sure how the basic regime is usually modified when neoadjuvant chemotherapy is used, but they are still working to the same basic set of rules.