Is it possible to catch nerve pain early in cancer treatment and minimize it? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Pain in nerves, called neuropathy, is more common when a couple types of cancer drugs are used or when someone has lung cancer versus other types of cancer, a new study concludes. Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson says keeping an eye out for development of neuropathy is something cancer doctors do.

Nelson: This is one of the things that the provider will ask a lot of questions about when you're on one of these drugs, in fact it's been true for quite a while. The other thing is there's severity differences some people will get a little bit of numbness and tingling in their fingertips and toes others may get motor nerve injury, which means you can't use those drugs at all. And certainly if you begin treatment with other reasons you have a neuropathy you typically don't use these drugs at all. I think the savior of this in the end may well be the drugs that have different molecular targets, precision medicine approach.  :32

Until then Nelson says people who suspect they are developing neuropathy should let their physician know. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.