Rapid desensitization to chemotherapy drugs in oncologic patients. A good and safe option. A two-case presentation

Hypersensitivity reactions, and anaphylactic or anaphylactoid reactions to oncologic chemotherapy drugs, such as platinum, taxanes, monoclonal antibodies and others, limit their therapeutic use due to the fear of the treating physician to induce severe or deadly reactions in patients who have presented previous reactions to the same. This leads to the use of less effective or second line chemotherapy schemes for the sensitivity of the tumor. The rapid desensitization to such medications in patients who have presented previous reactions is a safe and proven effective procedure, which allows the use of the most effective chemotherapy drugs for the tumor sensitivity in oncologic patients even if they have presented hypersensitivity reactions to those drugs previously. In spite of the effectiveness, safety and tolerance demonstrated in fast desensitization to chemotherapy drug protocols in previous works, it remains an underutilized procedure, perhaps due to ignorance and/or fear of triggering a serious reaction in patients. Two successful cases of fast desensitization are hereby presented, one with trastuzumab (Herceptin), a monoclonal antibody, and another with docetaxel (Taxotere), a semisynthetic taxane, both products utilized for the treatment of breast cancer. The purpose of this presentation is to disseminate among oncologists, allergists, nurses applying chemotherapy and in general to all medical personnel related to cancer patients, the benefits of such rapid desensitization to chemotherapy drug protocols in patients with previous hypersensitivity reactions. The relative ease to accomplish them and the high percentage of success that is achieved encourage us to promote more frequent and universal use of these procedures.