Dawn L. Hershman on Preventing CIPN in Patients With Diabetes

Dawn L. Hershman, MD, MS, Columbia University Medical Center, discusses preventing chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) in diabetic patients with cancer.

Clinicians treating patients who already have diabetes-related neuropathy need to be careful in prescribing certain chemotherapy drugs that may worsen the neuropathy, especially in the palliative care setting where there may not be much benefit. For patients who may see a marginal benefit with chemotherapy, perhaps clinicians would consider prescribing docetaxel instead of paclitaxel to reduce CIPN risk.