As part of our individualized approach to care, Block Center uses chronomodulated chemotherapy to improve survival and reduce toxicity.  Treatment is delivered via a portable, computerized pump which allows patients full mobility during therapy.

With this advanced treatment modality, the timing of the infusion is based on three important factors:

    The biological uniqueness of the particular drug being given

    The time when the specific type of cancer cells divide and are more vulnerable to cell death

    The time when the healthy cells are at rest and less sensitive to toxicity.  

Using chronomodulated chemotherapy patients can often tolerate drug protocols that had previously caused them severe side-effects.

“I initially brought this technology from Europe to the United States in order to help our patients better tolerate their chemotherapy treatments but am equally impressed by its treatment benefits. Studies show that chronotherapy doubles treatment response for metastatic colon cancer.  A recent study in the journal Cancer shows that optimal timing of chemotherapy can quadruple five-year survival for ovarian cancer."                                         -Keith I. Block, M.D.

Chronomodulated Chemotherapy offers the following key benefits: 

    Mitigates toxicity

    Allows patients to be more active

    Provides optimal dosage without interruption of treatment schedules

    Improves response and survival

The Block Center was recognized for this innovative treatment advance by the Chicago Tribune in an article that appeared on March 12, 2006.  

Put time on your side

Treatments synchronized with your body clock might make all the difference

    "I was very troubled by the adverse side effects and difficulty patients experience when receiving chemo," said Block, who also directs the integrative-medicine program at the College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago

    With chronotherapy, "The infusion starts slowly and ratchets up, hour by hour," said Dr. Keith Block, who has been using chronotherapy at the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Care in Evanston since 1998. "It slowly increases to the middle point of the cycle, peaks, infuses most of the drug here, and then slowly ratchets back down, to no drug, where the chrono cycle is completed.”