Chemotherapy Drug

Cancer refers to the uncontrolled growth of cells combined with malignant behavior invasion and metastasis. The cause for this disease is believed to be the interaction of environmental toxins and the genetic susceptibility. Basically, the chemotherapy drugs 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 is used to kill the cells of micro-organisms or cancer. 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 better a combination of such drugs, functions on the principle of cellular destruction. Unfortunately, these drugs also affect/attack other healthy cells that divide rapidly. These other cells that get attacked by a chemotherapy drug are cells in the hair follicles, bone marrow and digestive tract. Thus, the main side effects of chemotherapy will include hair loss, the inflammation of the digestive tract and the reduced production of blood cells.

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.

Different classes of chemotherapy drug medication are available at present. Thus there are antimetabolites, alkylating agents, topoisomerase inhibitors, anthracyclines and several others. While all these chemicals interfere with the DNA structure, there are newer and revolutionary medicines like the tyrosine kinase inhibitors or the monoclonal antibodies that leave the nucleic acids unaffected.

These ones target a molecular abnormality in peculiar types of cancer such as chronic myelogenous leukemia or gastrointestinal stromal tumors. More special chemotherapy drug options only change the behavior of the tumor cells without affecting other tissues. From these so-called adjuvant therapies, the hormone treatment will be commonly used.

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.

Filed Under: Chemotherapy