Xeloda has a retail price of $4,745.37. Xeloda costs $46.95 with SingleCare.
How much does Xeloda cost per month?
Jere Carpentier was anxious about spending hours in a clinic hooked to an intravenous line, experiencing grueling chemotherapy that would cause her hair to fall out when she heard she had advanced colon cancer last year, her third tumor in a dozen years. Carpentier was overjoyed when her oncologist told her that she could avoid needles this time and instead take a tablet at home that would selectively target cancer cells while sparing her hair.
However, the former human resources manager from San Jose quickly realized that her insurer would not cover the $4,000-per-month Xeloda pill because a cheaper IV medicine was available. Instead, she had surgery to install a port in her chest, which she used to receive 46-hour-long chemotherapy infusions at home. The equipment, which included a huge needle that restricted her every movement, sprung a leak one night and began producing a piercing alarm, necessitating a hasty trip to the emergency department. “I’d been through two malignancies,” Carpentier, now 60, remembered, “and it was the scariest thing that had happened to me.”
In Carpentier’s opinion, it’s both frightening and unnecessary. “Surgery for the port and the ER visit alone cost more than the blasted pill would have cost,” she explained.
What is the average cost for capecitabine?
The chemotherapeutic medication CAPECITABINE is used to treat cancer. It is used to treat cancers such as breast cancer, colon cancer, and rectal cancer. The lowest GoodRx price for capecitabine is roughly $55.97, which is 98 percent less than the average retail price of $3,165.10.
How much is capecitabine Xeloda?
Capecitabine is a drug that is used to treat cancers of the breast, colon, and rectal organs. Here’s where you can learn more about this medicine. This is a generic medication. The average cost of 84 generic (capecitabine) tablets, 500mg each, is $490.56.
When you must not take it
- Taking sorivudine or brivudine with Xeloda has the potential to be lethal.
- It’s possible that if you take this medicine after the expiration date, it won’t work as well.
Before you start to take it
- When a pregnant woman takes Xeloda, it may harm her unborn child. Taking Xeloda while pregnant is not recommended. Additionally, if you are a woman, you should prevent becoming pregnant while taking Xeloda by using effective contraception.
- Whether Xeloda and 5-FU enter into breast milk is unknown. If you are breastfeeding, talk to your doctor about the risks and advantages of taking Xeloda.
- If you haven’t notified your doctor about any of the following, do so before beginning Xeloda treatment.
Taking other medicines
Tell your doctor about any additional medications you’re taking, including those you obtained without a prescription from a drugstore, supermarket, or health food store.
- Dilantin (phenytoin) is a drug that is used to treat epilepsy and heart abnormalities.
- Leucovorin, commonly known as folinic acid, is a medication used to treat anemias caused by a lack of folic acid.
These medications may interact with Xeloda or alter how well it works. You may need to take other drugs or use different doses of your medications. Your doctor will give you advice.
More information about drugs to avoid or avoid while taking Xeloda can be obtained from your doctor or pharmacist.
How much to take
Xeloda can be used in conjunction with or instead of chemotherapy. Your doctor will advise you how many and how often to take Xeloda tablets each day. The dose will be calculated by your doctor based on your height and weight.
Depending on the severity of your disease and your response to Xeloda, your doctor may adjust your dose. Patients that are elderly may require less treatment.
For older individuals using Xeloda alone, the same dose is suggested. Patients who are taking Xeloda in combination with other cancer medications may be given a lower dose. Please carefully follow your doctor’s recommendations.
When to take it
Tablets of Xeloda should be taken with food. Xeloda should be taken within 30 minutes of eating.
It’s great if you take your medications at the same time every day. It will also assist you in remembering to take the medicines on time.
When Xeloda is used in conjunction with chemotherapy, your doctor will tell you which days of your treatment cycle to take it.
How long to take Xeloda
The length of your Xeloda treatment varies depending on the severity of your condition and how well you respond to it.
Your Xeloda treatment consists of a number of treatment cycles that typically last 21 days. Your doctor will tell you how many treatment cycles you’ll have and whether the cycle will include any rest days.
Your treatment cycle will most likely consist of intermittent Xeloda therapy, in which you will take Xeloda for 14 days and then rest for 7 days. You will not take any Xeloda throughout the rest period.
Alternatively, you could have a continuous treatment cycle, which contains 21 days of Xeloda medication with no time off.
If you forget to take Xeloda
Don’t take a second dose. Wait until your next dose and then take your regular dose.
Do not attempt to make up for a missing dose by taking multiple doses at once.
If you take too much (overdose)
If you believe you or someone else may have taken too much Xeloda, call your doctor or the Poisons Information Centre (Australia: 13 11 26; New Zealand: 0800 764 766) for help, or go to Accident & Emergency at your nearest hospital.
Things you must do
Tell all of your doctors, dentists, and pharmacists that you are taking Xeloda.
If you have diarrhoea, call your doctor right away (more than 4 bowel movements each day).
Some people may get diarrhoea after taking Xeloda. Your doctor may decide to discontinue your Xeloda treatment and treat your diarrhoea before resuming your Xeloda treatment.
If you get nausea (feeling like you’re going to puke) and it’s affecting your appetite, call your doctor right away.
Some people may experience nausea when taking Xeloda. Your doctor may decide to discontinue your Xeloda treatment and treat your nausea before resuming your Xeloda treatment.
If you experience vomiting and vomit more than once in a 24-hour period, call your doctor right away.
In certain people, Xeloda can cause vomiting. Your doctor may decide to discontinue your Xeloda treatment and treat your vomiting before resuming your Xeloda treatment.
If you notice redness or swelling in your hands or feet that interferes with your daily activities, contact your doctor right once.
Xeloda might produce redness and swelling in the hands and/or feet, which can make it difficult to go about your daily activities. Your doctor may decide to treat this with additional medications or to stop taking Xeloda until the side effect subsides.
If you have discomfort, redness, swelling, or sores in your mouth, call your doctor right once.
In certain people, Xeloda might cause oral pain, redness, swelling, or sores. Your doctor may decide to treat this with additional medications or to stop taking Xeloda until the side effect subsides.
If you haven’t taken your drug exactly as prescribed for any reason, tell your doctor.
Otherwise, your doctor may conclude that it was ineffective and make needless changes to your therapy.
Make sure to keep all of your doctor’s appointments so that your progress may be monitored.
Things you must not do
Stop taking Xeloda or adjust the dose without consulting your doctor beforehand.
Do not take any additional medications without first visiting your doctor or a pharmacist, whether they require a prescription or not.
Is Xeloda expensive?
Depending on the pharmacy you visit, the cost of a supply of 60 Xeloda oral tablet 150 mg is roughly $859. Prices are only valid for cash paying consumers and do not apply to insurance programs.
How successful is Xeloda?
- Early-stage: Stage IA, early-stage: Stage IB, early-stage: Stage IB, early-stage: Stage Early-stage: Stage IB, Early-stage: Stage IIA, Early-stage: Stage IIB, Early-stage: Stage IIIA, Early-stage: Stage IIIB, Early-stage: Stage IIIA, Early-stage: Stage IIIB HER2/neu Negative Cancer, Xeloda (chemical name: capecitabine), Chemotherapy After Surgery (Adjuvant), and Planning/Considering Chemotherapy are all examples of early-stage cancer.
Xeloda (capecitabine) is a chemotherapy drug that is frequently used in conjunction with other anticancer drugs. It’s typically used to treat advanced-stage breast cancer that hasn’t responded to previous forms of chemotherapy. Xeloda is a tablet that is taken orally.
Neoadjuvant treatment is a type of treatment given before surgery to weaken or shrink the malignancy. When breast cancer is big, aggressive, and/or has progressed beyond the breast to adjacent tissue, neoadjuvant treatment is frequently indicated.
Looking at the tissue taken after surgery to check if any cancer cells are present is one way surgeons measure the effectiveness of neoadjuvant treatment. Doctors refer to this as a “pathologic full response” when there are no cancer cells present. If cancer cells are found in the tissue removed, doctors call it “residual illness,” because cancer cells are likely to remain in the body. A pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant treatment, according to many specialists, suggests the cancer is less likely to return.
Women diagnosed with early-stage, HER2-negative breast cancer with residual disease who were treated with Xeloda after surgery had a better prognosis than women who did not get chemotherapy after surgery, according to a Japanese study.
The research was presented at the 2015 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium on December 9, 2015. “A phase III trial of adjuvant capecitabine in breast cancer patients with HER2-negative pathologic residual invasive disease following neoadjuvant chemotherapy (CREATE-X, JBCRG-04),” according to the abstract.
The term “disease-free survival” refers to how long a woman can go without her cancer reappearing (recurrence). The length of time a woman lives with or without cancer is referred to as overall survival.
In the study, 885 women with HER2-negative breast cancer in stages I to IIIB were given neoadjuvant chemotherapy with an anthracycline and/or taxane chemotherapy medication and were found to have residual disease after surgery.
Adriamycin (doxorubicin) and Ellence (epirubicin) are two examples of anthracyclines. Taxanes include paclitaxel (chemical name: paclitaxel) and docetaxel (chemical name: docetaxel).
- Radiation and hormonal therapy (if the cancer was hormone-receptor positive) are the typical treatments, but chemotherapy is not used.
Half of the women in the study were under the age of 48, while the other half were beyond the age of 48, with 58 percent of them being premenopausal. Hormone-receptor-positive tumors made up about 63 percent of the cases.
The researchers discovered that women who had Xeloda after surgery had a greater disease-free survival rate than women who did not receive chemotherapy after surgery following a 5-year follow-up period:
When the women were divided into groups based on their age, hormone receptor status, cancer grade, or kind of neoadjuvant chemotherapy, the researchers discovered that Xeloda enhanced survival.
“Capecitabine adjuvant therapy for non-pathologic complete response or node-positive patients after neoadjuvant chemotherapy dramatically enhanced overall survival,” said Masakazu Toi, M.D., Ph.D., of Kyoto University Hospital. “The balance of benefit and toxicity favors the use of capecitabine in post-neoadjuvant chemotherapy, however therapeutic benefit prediction needs to be studied further.”
45 percent of the women in the trial completed all eight Xeloda cycles. Because of side effects, about 30% of the women had to take a lower dose of Xeloda, and 22.5 percent of the women discontinued taking it altogether.
If you’ve been diagnosed with early-stage, HER2-negative breast cancer and haven’t had a pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, you should discuss this research with your doctor, especially if the disease was big or affected more than one or two lymph nodes. While using Xeloda after surgery isn’t the standard of care, you and your doctor can discuss if it’s a suitable fit for you and your specific case.
- Kadcyla Improves Survival in Women With Metastatic, HER2-Positive Cancer That Hasn’t Responded to Herceptin or Tykerb
- In postmenopausal women, Arimidex or Tamoxifen both reduce the risk of recurrence after DCIS, however the choice is based on age and side effects.
- Premenopausal women with certain types of breast cancer may not benefit from chemotherapy, according to a new study.
- Prolia Lowers the Risk of Hormone-Receptor-Positive Disease Recurrence in Women Who Take Aromatase Inhibitors
Does Xeloda cause hair loss?
The majority of people handle capecitabine well because the side effects are usually minor and manageable. Drugs, on the other hand, affect everyone differently.
Some people experience greater adverse effects than others, and not everyone will experience the side effects indicated here.
If you take other medications at the same time as capecitabine, you may experience side effects from those medications as well.
If you have any concerns regarding side effects, regardless of whether they are included here, speak with your chemotherapy nurse or oncologist as soon as possible.
If the adverse effects become too severe, your doctor may lower or delay your capecitabine dose. Capecitabine is commonly reduced in dose, and the treatment can still be effective at a lower dose.
Effects on the blood
Your blood count will be checked on a regular basis. Red cells, white cells, and platelets make up blood. If your blood cell count is very low, your next treatment cycle may be postponed or your chemotherapy dose reduced.
An infection can be worsened if you don’t have enough white blood cells.
Your treatment team may provide you with reporting recommendations, but in general, if you encounter any of the following symptoms, you should notify your hospital right away:
- A high temperature (more than 37.5°C) or a low temperature (less than 36°C), or whatever your chemotherapy team has recommended.
- Symptoms of an infection include a sore throat, cough, frequent urination, and a sense of being chilly or shivery.
Your treatment team should provide you a 24-hour contact number or tell you where to receive emergency care before you start chemotherapy. Antibiotics may be required.
Injections of medications known as growth factors may be recommended by your doctor at times. This increases the production of white blood cells in the body, lowering the danger of infection.
Anaemia is a condition in which there are too few red blood cells in the body. Let your treatment team know if you’re feeling extremely exhausted, breathless, or dizzy.
Capecitabine can lower the quantity of platelets in the blood, which aid in clotting. You may bruise more readily, experience nosebleeds, or have bleeding gums when brushing your teeth. If you have any of these symptoms, let your doctor know.
Skin reactions
Hand-foot syndrome, also known as Palmar-Plantar syndrome, is a common side effect of various breast cancer chemotherapy medications.
The palms of the hands and the soles of the feet can become red and sore as a result of this condition. A tingling feeling, numbness, or swelling may be present as well.
It’s also possible that the skin on your hands and feet could grow red, dry, and flaky. If the treatment is postponed or the dose is reduced, this should improve.
Moisturizing creams can be recommended by your treatment team to help with skin responses.
Nausea and vomiting
Although the majority of individuals will not become sick (vomit), anti-sickness medications can help lessen or prevent this from happening, so follow the directions carefully. Steroids may be used to enhance the effectiveness of anti-sickness medications.
Sore mouth
It’s possible that your mouth and gums could get irritated, and small ulcers will form. If you’re taking capecitabine with other chemotherapy medicines, this is frequently worse.
If these problems arise, your chemotherapy nurse or treatment team will advise you on the best mouthwashes or medications to use.
During therapy, it’s critical to look after your mouth, particularly your teeth and gums.
It’s a good idea to see your dentist for a dental check-up before starting chemotherapy, and to avoid dental care as much as possible while on it. If you need dental treatment while undergoing chemotherapy, discuss the ideal time with your oncologist.
Loss of appetite
Capecitabine can cause you to lose your appetite. Your sense of taste may change as well, and some foods and beverages may taste different as a result.
This is something you should discuss with your treatment team. They will offer you guidance and information and, if necessary, send you to a dietitian.
Extreme tiredness
Cancer-related fatigue is a state of acute exhaustion that does not improve with rest or sleep. It’s a typical side effect of breast cancer treatment that can have both physical and emotional consequences.
Tell your doctor or treatment team if you think you’re tired. They can measure your energy levels and provide you recommendations on how to manage them.
Hair loss
When taken alone, capecitabine can cause transient hair thinning. It only causes full hair loss in a small percentage of cases.
Most people will lose all of their hair, including eyebrows, eyelashes, and body hair, if capecitabine is used in conjunction with another chemotherapy treatment.
Allergic reaction
An allergic reaction to a medicine can happen on rare occasions. Mild to severe responses are possible, while severe reactions are infrequent.
After taking capecitabine, if you get edema, wheezing, chest pain, or difficulty breathing, contact your treatment team or chemotherapy nurse right away.
DPD deficiency (very rare)
Chemotherapy can build up in the body if there isn’t enough DPD, causing severe side effects. This can be life-threatening in some circumstances.
A blood test to assess DPD levels is advised for everyone starting capecitabine.
You may not be administered the medicine if you have low levels of DPD, which is known as a DPD deficit.
A member of the oncology team will discuss the blood test during your pre-assessment session.
What is the generic name for Xeloda?
The generic name for the brand-name medication Xeloda is capecitabine. When referring to the generic medicine capecitabine, health care practitioners may use the brand name Xeloda in specific instances. Capecitabine is an anti-cancer chemotherapeutic medication (also known as “antineoplastic” or “cytotoxic”).
When do Xeloda side effects go away?
Capecitabine (the active ingredient in Xeloda) may have some side effects in addition to its desired effects. Although not all of these side effects are likely to occur, if they do, medical treatment may be required.
If you have any of the following side effects while taking capecitabine, contact your doctor right away.
- tingling, numbness, or other strange feelings in the palms of the hands or the soles of the feet
- The palms of the hands or the bottoms of the feet may experience pain, blistering, peeling, redness, or swelling.
- When swallowing, you may have difficulties swallowing or feel pain in the back of your throat or chest.
Side effects not requiring immediate medical attention
Some capecitabine adverse effects may occur, although they normally do not require medical treatment. As your body responds to the drug, these side effects may fade away during treatment. In addition, your health care provider may be able to advise you on how to avoid or mitigate some of these adverse effects.
If any of the following side effects persist or become troublesome, or if you have any questions about them, consult your doctor:
- Feelings of tingling, burning, crawling, itching, numbness, prickling, “pins and needles,” or tingling