The short answer
Certain chemotherapy drugs cause severe irritation or damage if they leak into the tissue around a vein. MedlinePlus tells patients to report pain, itching, redness, swelling, blisters or sores at the injection site. NCI's advice is to speak up right away about burning or pain during an infusion.
MedlinePlus says vincristine may leak into surrounding tissue, causing severe irritation or damage.
Symptoms to report include pain, itching, redness, swelling, blisters or sores where the medicine was injected.
NCI advises telling your doctor or nurse right away about burning or pain during IV chemotherapy.
MedlinePlus lists swelling, pain, redness or burning at the injection site among cisplatin symptoms to tell your doctor about right away.
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The whole article, with every detail and caution.
When to get help sooner
This page is for anyone getting chemotherapy through a vein or a port. It explains what to do if a drug leaks out of the vein, and why you are often the first to notice. The warning signs come first.
Call 911 or get emergency medical treatment if hives, rash or itching come with either of these:
- Difficulty breathing or swallowing.
- Swelling of the face, arms, hands, feet, ankles or lower legs.
MedlinePlus names those as serious symptoms that need a doctor immediately or emergency care.
During an infusion, tell your nurse right away if you feel burning or pain at the site. NCI's chemotherapy guide gives exactly that instruction. Do not wait for the bag to finish and do not wait for someone to walk past.
Call your care team right away if, after treatment, you develop pain, itching, redness, swelling, blisters or sores where the medicine went in. MedlinePlus names those symptoms as things to tell your doctor about right away for vincristine. It also lists swelling, pain, redness or burning at the injection site among cisplatin symptoms to report right away.
If you are on chemotherapy, call your care team right away, day or night, for fever, chills, sore throat, mouth sores or any other sign of infection. NCI says to call even on a weekend or in the middle of the night. A normal temperature is not a reason to wait.
What is actually at stake
The point of this article is not to make you dread the chair.
But some chemotherapy drugs are hard on tissue. MedlinePlus says of vincristine that if it leaks into surrounding tissue, it may cause severe irritation or damage.
That is the whole reason for the fuss. A drug that is doing its job inside a vein is carried away in the bloodstream. If it seeps into the fat and muscle around the vein, it is in the wrong place. Nurses call this extravasation.
Why you are the important person here
An infusion nurse watches the site, checks the line and knows the drugs. What they cannot do is feel your arm.
NCI names burning and pain as the feelings to report. You may feel them before you can see anything.
So the job is yours: pay attention to the arm or the port site during the infusion, and say something the moment it changes. Not politely at the end. Not after you have decided whether it counts.
Checking the line when you report a change is part of your nurse's job. It is always fine to speak up.
What to notice
The things MedlinePlus and NCI name are short:
- Burning
- Pain
- Itching
- Redness
- Swelling
- Blisters or sores at the injection site
Any of those during or after an infusion is worth reporting. If you are not sure whether the feeling counts, report it anyway and let a clinician decide.
After you get home
Look at the site before bed and again in the morning.
Take a photo if anything looks different, with the date, so you can show a change rather than describe one. If pain, redness, swelling or blistering appears in the days after treatment, call your care team right away.
Worth asking before your next cycle
Ask your team whether the drugs you are receiving are the sort that damage tissue when they leak. Not every chemotherapy drug behaves the same way.
Ask too how to get attention fast in your particular infusion unit. Some places have a call button at each chair. Some rely on you catching someone's eye. Knowing the answer before you need it takes ten seconds and removes any hesitation later.
Common questions
What does it feel like?
The symptoms MedlinePlus names are pain, itching, redness, swelling, blisters or sores at the injection site. NCI says to tell your doctor or nurse right away about burning or pain during IV chemotherapy.
How quickly should I say something?
Right away. NCI's wording is to tell your doctor or nurse right away if you have burning or pain when you get IV chemotherapy. That is during the infusion, not afterwards.
What happens to the tissue if it leaks?
MedlinePlus states that vincristine leaking into surrounding tissue may cause severe irritation or damage. That is why nurses take the site so seriously.
Is this the same as an infusion reaction?
No. A leak is about the drug getting into tissue around the vein. Both need reporting, but they are different problems and your nurse will want to know exactly where you feel something and what it feels like.
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Fever of 100.4°F (38°C) or higher during chemo, severe pain, or trouble breathing: call your cancer care team right away, day or night. Call 911 for an emergency.
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Sources last checked: 2026-08-11 what this meansLast updated: 2026-09-29Next planned review: 2027-08-11
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Cancer Explained does not originate medical claims. Every page restates guidance already published by the National Cancer Institute, the CDC, the USPSTF and the FDA, in plain language, with the source cited so you can check the original yourself. AI does the translating and organizing; automated checks test claims, citations, clarity and safety before anything publishes, and this is translation and navigation, not clinical judgment. Nothing here is personal medical advice, and no page can account for your particular situation.
Editorial status: Source checked — This page was written with AI assistance and then compared with the sources listed on it, looking for statements those sources do not back up. That check is not a sentence-by-sentence record and can miss errors. It is not a medical review, and it does not confirm the page is complete or right for your situation.
Human medical review: not completed. Pages here are not signed off by a clinician before they publish. That is not an oversight we are quietly working around: we restate published guidance and cite it, so the authority belongs to the source rather than to us, and every page names where its claims come from — you can verify us instead of trusting us. Where a volunteer clinician has reviewed a page, their name and credentials appear on it; where no name appears, no clinician has checked it. We are glad to have reviewers and are recruiting them, and we do not hold pages back waiting for one. Use this site to understand your situation and to ask better questions of the people treating you.
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