Chemoprevention Flashcards
What is better than a cure?
Prevention
What are some major avoidable risk factors?
- Tobacco exposure
- Diet (fibre, vitamins, meat, salt)
- Weight/Obesity
- Alcohol
- Occupational exposure
- Radiation
- Exercise
- Infection
What population study supports the importance of lifestyle and environment in the development of cancer?
Incidence of stomach and colorectal cancer in Japanese, Japanese living in Hawaii, and US caucasian populations
What is chemo/therapeutic prevention?
Use of natural or synthetic compounds to reverse, suppress or delay carcinogenic progression to invasive cancer
What is the most important quality in an ideal therapeutic preventative agent?
No (or low) toxicity
What else should the ideal agent be?
- Highly efficacious
- Have known mechanisms
- Be accepted by the general population
- Have an oral formulation, or one off vaccine
- Cheap
What part of carcinogenesis provides lots of opportunity for chemoprevention?
Its multistep process taking many years
What are the two categories of chemopreventive agents?
- Blocking agents
- Suppressing agents
What do blocking agents do?
Prevent carcinogens from being generated or reaching/reacting with critical target sites
What do suppressing agents do?
Act after carcinogenic exposure to suppress expression of neoplasia
Name some examples of targets for blocking agents
- Free radical scavenging
- antioxidant activity
- Induction of phase 2 drug metabolising enzymes
- Induction of DNA repair
- Carcinogenic uptake
Name some targets for suppression agents
- Modulation of signal transduction
- Altering gene expression
- Inhibition of cell proliferation
- Induction of terminal differentiation
Who is primary chemo-prevention aimed at?
- High-risk individuals
- Healthy subjects
Who is secondary chemo-prevention aimed at?
- Pts with pre-invasive dysplasia
- Pts with pre-neoplastic lesions
Who is tertiary chemo-prevention aimed at?
Successfully treated cancer patients