Introducing Chronotherapy

Block Center for Integrative Cancer Care is one of the first and only healthcare facilities in the United States to offer the clinical practice of chronotherapy. Through this revolutionary approach, chemotherapy is administered to patients based on circadian timing to optimize effectiveness while reducing toxic side effects.

diagnosis of cancer evokes emotions from every facet of the human persona - from shock to fear, denial to acceptance. But once the diagnosis is accepted, perhaps an even greater fear is instilled by the prospect of undergoing toxic chemotherapy to treat the cancer.

Life-prolonging chemotherapy treatments are improved upon every day, but the stigma of the method lives on. The inability to tolerate painful side effects of these toxic chemicals, days of nausea following each cycle, or constant fatigue to the point of exhaustion have time and again caused patients to reduce their dosages or even discontinue their treatment prematurely.

But there have been incredible breakthroughs to address these issues, and the quality of life for patients undergoing certain chemotherapy treatments has been vastly improved while their medications are actually made more effective. This breakthrough method involves one of life's simplest, yet most essential elements, and that is time.

What is Chronotherapy?

Chronotherapy is based on the scientific fact that our biochemistry behaves differently at different times of the day. This series of 24-hour cycles are commonly referred to as the body's circadian rhythms. Chronotherapy seeks to exploit this fact by calibrating the dosing of chemotherapy agents to these circadian rhythms. At left is a sample of the changes that take place within your biochemistry over a 24-hour period.