Maintenance Therapies

Maintenance Therapies

When your cancer treatment ends, your doctor may want you to receive on-going medication or other treatment to help keep your cancer in remission. This is called maintenance therapy, because its goal is to maintain the effectiveness of the original treatment.

Maintenance therapy is used for various cancers, including lymphoma, breast cancer, lung cancer and leukemia, among others. The selection of a maintenance therapy depends upon cancer type, original treatment and other factors. Some maintenance therapies are well-established regimens; others are being tested in clinical trials.

Although you may feel some reassurance that you’re strengthening your prospects for remission by continuing anticancer medication or other maintenance therapy, it may also leave you feeling a bit like you’re in limbo. Your main treatment has ended, but with maintenance therapy, you may feel more like a patient than like someone who is moving forward.  

Take heart from the fact that maintenance therapy is part of your plan to sustain and strengthen your overall health. You may need to manage cancer long-term as part of that plan, but many people have to do the same with other health conditions, including asthma, heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Be sure to talk with your doctor about your maintenance therapy program so that you understand its schedule and goals. Just as with primary treatment, discuss questions about your medications or any side effects with your doctor as soon as possible. There are good solutions available for many side effects—solutions that will enable you to continue maintenance therapy and benefit from it.