Is thickening of blood a reaction to chemotherapy?
Patient: My 69 year old brother just completed his 1st round (5 days) of chemotherapy for aggressive Large B cell lymphoma. During the chemo he was on large doses of steroids. He is also a double kidney transplant and is on immunosuppressants. He hasn t had any reaction to the chemo at this point but tonight he thought he was going to have a bowel movement but instead started passing blood clots..quite a bit. He had a clean colonoscopy 10 days ago. One of the drugs given was the blood thinner Lovenox (sp?) is this a reaction to the chemo? Doctor: Hi,Thanks for writing in.If your brother has passed clots in stool then please talk to his doctor at the earliest. This might indicate that his thinned down and leaking some place in the intestine. This is an emergency. You have understood the incident slightly wrongly. What has happened is his blood is thin due to medications. This will prevent blood from clotting usually. He has started bleeding at some point in his bowel. This is causing bleeding to occur. As the blood is thin therefore it is not able to clot fast resulting in leaking and blood loss.Due to the above the blood that has leaked in to the colon and rectum is being seen as clots in the stools. Please get his doctor to attend him.