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Taking Capecitabine safely

Hilary1303
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My husband is just starting a course of Capecitabine for colon cancer.  The instructions are to take it twice a day, 12 hours apart, within 30 minutes of a meal.  We normally have breakfast at 9am then eat our evening meal around 7pm, this would be periods of 10 hours in the day and 14 hours overnight.  Does anyone know if this is safe or are the 12 hour periods to be strictly adhered to.

  • Welcome to the Cancer Chat forum Hilary although I'm sorry to hear your husband has colon cancer.

    Your husband's GP and/or medical team will be in the best position to advise on this but you can give our team of cancer nurses a call as well on 0808 800 4040. Their phone lines are open Monday - Friday between 9a.m - 5p.m and they will do all that they can to help.

    Hopefully some of our members who have taken Capecitabine will share their experiences and advice with you soon but in the meantime, we're thinking of you and wishing your husband all the best with this treatment.

    Kind regards,

    Steph, Cancer Chat Moderator

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    Hi Hilary

    My husband has been taking capecitabine fir 6 months and we have our meals at roughly the same times as you’ve mentioned - so what we did was to make him a snack around 9pm so he would have his tablets after that.

    Our doctor said there is a 2 hour leeway on the 12 hours so if you had your meal around 7.30 and then 9am it should be ok according to what we were told - but we just did the 9pm snack which worked for us.

    Hope this helps and good luck

    Jackie

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