Dose-dense chemotherapy is a way of planning treatment so that the drugs are given with less time between treatments than in a standard treatment plan. But the same total dose of chemotherapy is given. For example, if the standard chemotherapy plan was 6 treatments over 18 weeks (treatment every 3 weeks), the dose-dense chemotherapy might give 6 treatments over 12 weeks (treatment every 2 weeks).

The aim of chemotherapy is to do the maximum damage to cancer cells while causing the minimum damage to healthy tissue. Generally, normal cells are better at repairing themselves than cancer cells. For this reason, chemotherapy is planned so that the body has time to recover between treatments, without giving cancer cells enough time to repair themselves.

Usually, the area of the body that is most sensitive to the effects of chemotherapy is the bone marrow (where blood cells are made). The time between chemotherapy sessions is based on the average time it takes for a person’s bone marrow and white blood cell numbers (needed to fight infection) to recover from the previous treatment.

For many years doctors have wondered whether giving chemotherapy treatments closer together would increase their effectiveness at killing cancer cells. But, up until recently it hasn’t been possible to do this, due to the risk of infection. However, there are now drugs called growth factors that can stimulate the bone marrow to recover and make white blood cells more quickly. These drugs, such as GCSF, are sometimes used with standard chemotherapy treatments to help a person’s blood cell numbers recover in time for their next treatment.

Doctors are now looking at whether these growth factors can be used to allow chemotherapy treatments be given closer together, (dose-dense chemotherapy). This approach is being tried for a number of cancers including breast cancer, small cell lung cancer and some types of lymphoma.

It is too early to say if does-dense chemotherapy will improve the results of treatment. Some studies have given promising results but others haven’t shown any benefit. So, research is continuing.