Background: Cancer is one of the most common disease all over the world. Cancer incidences and death rates are rapidly increasing world widely. This study was conducted to estimate the side effects of chemotherapy amond study population. Materials & Methods: This study was conducted in year 2015. All patients with any malignancy who underwent chemotherapy were included in this study. It included 68 patients of different malignancy. A questionnaire was prepared which included basic information such as name, age, gender, socio-economic status, patients’ opinion about starvation for different time lengths and the side effects of the chemotherapy. The side effects were graded into four categories. 0 - no side effect, 1- mild, 2- moderate and 4- Severe side effects. Results: Out of 98 patients. 29 were males and 69 were females. The difference was significant (P-0.01). Most common cancer in males was oral cancer (7) followed by lung cancer (6), cancer GIT (4), blood cancer (4) and throat cancer (4). In females, most commonly seen cancer was breast cancer (41) followed by uterine cancer (10) and ovarian cancer (5). The difference was significant among distribution of cancer in females (P-0.01). Among various side effects of chemotherapy most common was fatigue (90%), followed by weakness (87%), nausea (75%), headache (68%), xerostomia (65%), vomiting (60%), mouth sore (35%), diarrhea (30%), alopecia (25%), memory impairment (25%), and abdominal cramps (12%). The difference was significant (P<0.05). We also recorded severity of side effects. They were graded into mild, moderate and severe. Most common severe side effect was fatigue (60%), moderate was weakness (45%) and mild was vomiting (50%). There was no significant difference among males and females regarding side effects (P>0.05). Conclusion: Chemotherapy is considered to the treatment for malignancy. However, though well response is seen among patients, side effects cannot be prevented. Hence there is need to invent newer drugs with minimal side effects.
Key words: Chemotherapy, side effect, xerostomia, vomiting.