Cancer refers to the uncontrolled growth of cells combined with malignant behavior – invasion and metastasis. It seams that the cause of the condition is a combination of genetic predisposition and the exposure to some environmental toxins. Basically, the chemotherapy drug’s functioning principle is to impair cell division (mitosis), targeting rapidly-dividing cells. The fact that these drugs destroy cells leads to their being named cytotoxic.
In broad general terms, chemotherapy kills cells by means of chemical substances. Particularly speaking, chemotherapy aims at destroying cancer and invasive micro-organisms that remain unaffected to other forms of treatment. Chemotherapy usually refers to antineoplastic drugs which are used to treat cancer or to the combination of these drugs into a cytotoxic standardized treatment regimen. From a non-oncological perspective, the term chemotherapy also refers to antibiotics – this is known as antibacterial chemotherapy.
A chemotherapy drug, or the drug cocktail established by the doctor, functions by destroying cells that divide quickly. Unfortunately, these drugs cannot make a selection between normal fast-dividing body cells and cancer cells. The collateral casualties produced by a chemotherapy drug are cells in the hair follicles, bone marrow and digestive tract. These results on the normal rapid-dividing cells are the side effects of chemotherapy: alopecia – hair loss, myelosuppression – decreased production of blood cells, and mucositis – inflammation of the digestive tract.
A chemotherapy drug could also be prescribed for the treatment of other problems such as autoimmune diseases – namely rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis. There are newer anti-cancer drugs which were designed to act directly against abnormal proteins in cancer cells; this treatment option is known as targeted therapy.
When talking about a chemotherapy drug, we should be aware that there are different types available at present. Most of the drugs can be divided into alkylating agents, antimetabolites, plant alkaloids, topoisomerase inhibitors, anthracyclines, and other antitumor agents. Some newer agents, like monoclonal antibodies and tyrosine kinase inhibitors, do not interfere directly with the DNA as do the above mentioned ones.
These ones target a molecular abnormality in particular types of cancer such as chronic myelogenous leukemia or gastrointestinal stromal tumors. Besides these, there is also the category of drugs that modulate the tumor cell behavior without directly attacking those cells. Within these adjuvant therapies the option very commonly used is the hormone treatment. The decision to administer only one chemotherapy drug or a combination of several medicines belongs to the doctor and it is taken depending on the stage of the disease and the purpose of the treatment.
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Tags: cancer, chemotherapy, health, medicine, treatment