News tagged with chemotherapeutic agent
Cause and potential treatment found for cancer drug's kidney toxicity
Scientists may have a way to make the powerful cancer drug cisplatin less toxic to the kidneys and more effective against some cancers.
Cancer
Jun 02, 2011 |
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Benefits of radionuclide therapy for neuroendocrine tumors
According to new Dutch research featured in the September issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, a peptide receptor radiolabeled therapy (PRRT), [177Lu-DOTA0,Tyr3]Octreotate (177Lu-octreotate) , is effective not only i ...
Cancer
Sep 20, 2011 |
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Folate receptors may serve as a front door to ovarian cancer treatment
A new strategy that takes advantage of ovarian cancer's reliance on folate appears to give relapse patients extra months of life with few side effects, researchers say.
Cancer
Oct 28, 2011 |
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Panel of melanoma mutations opens door to new treatment possibilities
Researchers have developed a new genetic screening tool that will aid in the investigation of possible treatments for patients with melanoma and the unique genetic mutations that may accompany the disease, according to data ...
Cancer
Nov 15, 2011 |
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New imaging process provides better picture of tumours
Cancer remains one of the leading causes of death in Europe and the world, and early detection and treatment remains vital in the fight. Researchers in Norway have validated a method of non-invasive imaging that they believe ...
Cancer
Oct 12, 2012 |
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Cancer therapy: Nanokey opens tumors to attack
There are plenty of effective anticancer agents around. The problem is that, very often, they cannot gain access to all the cells in solid tumors. A new gene delivery vehicle may provide a way of making tracks to the heart ...
Cancer
Nov 14, 2012 |
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Recent findings may help to fight melanoma's resistance to chemotherapy
Blocking the action of a particular protein in our skin could improve the treatment of skin cancers, according to a study published in Oncogene yesterday by Philippe Roux, a researcher at the University of Montreal's Instit ...
Cancer
Oct 31, 2012 |
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Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy, in its most general sense, refers to treatment of disease by chemicals that kill cells, both good and bad, but specifically those of micro-organisms or cancerous tumours. In popular usage, it refers to antineoplastic drugs used to treat cancer or the combination of these drugs into a cytotoxic standardized treatment regimen. In its non-oncological use, the term may also refer to antibiotics (antibacterial chemotherapy). In that sense, the first modern chemotherapeutic agent was Paul Ehrlich's arsphenamine, an arsenic compound discovered in 1909 and used to treat syphilis. This was later followed by sulfonamides discovered by Domagk and penicillin discovered by Alexander Fleming.
Most commonly, chemotherapy acts by killing cells that divide rapidly, one of the main properties of cancer cells. This means that it also harms cells that divide rapidly under normal circumstances: cells in the bone marrow, digestive tract and hair follicles; this results in the most common side effects of chemotherapy—myelosuppression (decreased production of blood cells), mucositis (inflammation of the lining of the digestive tract) and alopecia (hair loss).
Other uses of cytostatic chemotherapy agents (including the ones mentioned below) are the treatment of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis and the suppression of transplant rejections (see immunosuppression and DMARDs). Newer anticancer drugs act directly against abnormal proteins in cancer cells; this is termed targeted therapy.
For more information about Chemotherapy, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
