Principles of chemotherapy

When you have completed this course you will be able to:

• explain the meaning of commonly used oncology terms
• perform an assessment of how suitable a person is for chemotherapy treatment
• assess radiological response to chemotherapy
• calculate the dose of chemotherapy (please not this is beyond the level required for the Part 2 MRCOG)
• list the common toxicities of chemotherapy and explain how they are managed
• describe the mode of action, side effects and administration of the main chemotherapy drugs used in gynaecological cancer
• define the role of chemotherapy in epithelial ovarian, germ cell ovarian, endometrial, uterine sarcoma, cervical, vulval and fallopian tube cancer

Dr Rachel Jones (2016)

Consultant Medical Oncologist at Velindre Cancer Centre, Cardiff specialising in ovarian cancer.

This course is intended to help clinicians gain core knowledge for O&G training and the MRCOG examinations.

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Targeted Therapies for the Management of Ovarian Cancer. Scientific Impact Paper No 12. London: RCOG; 2013.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Ovarian Cancer: Recognition and Initial Management. CG122. NICE; 2011.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Cervical Cancer and HPV. Clinical Knowledge Summaries. NICE; 2014 (updated 2022).