Review of hematological indices of cancer patients receiving combined chemotherapy & radiotherapy or receiving radiotherapy alone

- We looked outcome of chemo-radiotherapy or radiotherapy via. CBC of cancer patients.
- Lymphocytes depressed 52%; patients were anemic-negative correlation with dose.
- More number of parameters affected in patients who treated with chemo-radiotherapy.
- Mixed results available for both treatments in literature regarding side effects.
- Need to combat the side effects for the efficacy of multi-treatment modalities.

We observed the outcomes of chemotherapy with radiotherapy (CR) or radiotherapy (RT) alone for cancer patients of larynx, breast, blood and brain origins through complete blood count (CBC). Following were more depressed in CR patients: mean corpuscular hemoglobin-MCH & lymphocytes-LYM, hematocrit, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration-MCHC, hemoglobin-HB and red blood cells-RBC. In RT patients, following were more depressed: LYM, MCH and MCHC. Overall, in all cancer patients, the lymphocytes were depressed 52%. There existed a significant difference between white blood cells and RBC in both CR and RT patients. A significant moderate negative correlation is found in HB with the dose range 30-78 (Gray) given to the CR cancer patients. More number of CBC parameters affected in patients treated with CR and RT; but in less percentage as compared to patients who treated with RT alone. The cancer patients suffered from anemia along with immune modulations from the treatments.