chemotherapy Flashcards
what are haematological tumours?
cancers that form in blood forming tissue, like bone marrow or lymph tissue (this is part of the haematological system)
neoadjuvant chemotherapy is what?
shrink the tumour before surgery/treatment of the breast cancer
adjuvant chemotherapy is what?
after surgery/treatment to prevent recurrence of the cancer.
palliative breast cancer chemotherapy is what?
alleviating symptoms, incurable cancers, this gives relief
anticancer chemotherapy is what?
using cytotoxic chemicals to kill of cancer cells.
attacks DNA biochemistry of cancer cells, bone marrow is particularly affected as this will affect all rapidly dividing cells in the body.
why do you give a combination of different chemotherapy?
many of them attack different parts of the cell cycle.
means you can use lower doses, so can reduce toxicity and reduce resistance to the drug.
why do you give chemotherapy in cycles?
let bone marrow recover, between each cycle. usually every 3 weeks
why does the bone marrow get most affected by the chemo?
as they have fast rate of dividing cells much like the cancer cells.
what is methotrexate and how is it a antimetabolite?
methotrexate- a drug that kills off rapidly dividing cells. anticancer drugs. inhibits producing of purines and pyrimidines. (stops the folate pathway) (antimetabolite as interferes with production DNA)
then give the patient folic acids.
what are the 2 actions false substrates?
inhibits the thymidylate synthase (starves the production thymine)
gets metabolised and incorporated into the DNA and causes damage from the inside.
alkylating agents do what?
alkylating to the DNA itself. DNA becomes irreversibly crosslinked, so can’t be repaired. cancer cells can’t replicate.
how is platinum compounds (cisplatin)used in cancer treatment.
highly used in testicular cancer.
targets guanine residues in the DNA to crosslink it so it can’t repair.
platinum in it. (limitation to chemotherapy
anthracycline antibiotics eg duxurubicin damages DNA through doing what?
can be called antibiotics.
intercalates with DNA (SLOTS INTO DNA GROOVES) to affect uncoiling and coiling of DNA.
can produce radicals to damage DMA
what do topoisomerase inhibitors do?
they stop the unwinding and coiling of the DNA so that it cannot replicate.
microtubule inhibitors do what to stop DNA replication?
they block the formation of the spindle fibres so prevent mitosis
