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Pharmacy 408 pharmaceutical lectures > Oncology > Flashcards

Oncology Flashcards

1
Q

What is cancer? (2 points)

A
  • disease characterised by uncontrolled, unregulated growth of abnormal forms of the body’s own cells.
  • these cells invade surrounding tissues and migrate to other parts of the body
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2
Q

What are the 4 main characteristics of cancer cells that distinguish them from normal cells?

A
  • uncontrolled growth
  • loss of function
  • invasiveness
  • metastases
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3
Q

What are the 4 main types of tumour types?

A
  • carcinoma (skin or tissues lining organs)
  • sarcoma (bone, muscle, blood vessels, tissues)
  • leukaemia (bone marrow)
  • Lymphoma (immune system)
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4
Q

What are the 5 approaches in cancer treatment?

A
  • chemotherapy
  • surgery
  • radiotherapy
  • hormone therapy
  • immune therapy
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5
Q

What is the purpose of chemo and radiation?

A

-to kill tumour cells as these cells are more susceptible to the actions of these drugs

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6
Q

What are the problems associated with chemotherapy? (6 points)

A

Side effects which arise from parameters such as

  • formulation factors (solubilisers)
  • PK variability
  • non-selective toxicity
  • poor drug solubility and stability
  • drug resistance
  • lack of oral chemotherapy
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7
Q

What are the attempts of newer chemotherapy formulations focussing on? (2 points)

A
  • efforts to kill cancer cells by more specific targeting while sparing normal cells
  • to achieve this, the focus is on development of novel drug delivery carriers for both existing and new drugs
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8
Q

What are the roles of drug delivery systems (4 points)

A
  • reduced side effect of chemo agents
  • enabling new and better chemotherapeutics regimen using existing pharmaceuticals
  • facilitate cancer prevention
  • pain management assoc with caner progression and chemo
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9
Q

What are the different drug delivery strategies? (8 points)

A
  • chemotherapy wafers
  • patches
  • osmotic pumps
  • PEGylated liposomes
  • liposomes
  • microspheres
  • polymer-drug conjugates
  • microchips
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10
Q

What are nanoparticulate drug delivery carriers? (2 points)

A
  • NPs are engineered, constructed systems measured in nm size.
  • made of polymers/polysaccharides of different nature
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11
Q

What are the advantages of NP carrier systems to tumour tissues? (3 points)

A

-enhanced permeation through tumour due to leaky, abnormal vasculature of cancer site (small particle size

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12
Q

What are the limitations of NP delivery?

A

-NPs will be taken up by liver, spleen and other parts of the reticulo-endothelium system, depending on their surface characteristics and particle size

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13
Q

What are the two ways of targeting NP to tumour tissues?

A
  • passive targeting

- active targeting

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14
Q

What is passive targeting? (2 points)

A
  • limited to RES uptake after injection of NP

- this limits the effective delivery of anticancer drug-loaded NPs to cancer cells

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15
Q

What is active targeting?

A

-this involves drug delivery to a specific site based on molecular recognition

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16
Q

What are the 5 strategies to improve active targeting to avoid RES?

A
  • PEGylation
  • construction of particles with hydrophilic surface
  • couple a ligand to the NP
  • use magnetic field
  • size reduction
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17
Q

How does PEGylation improve active targeting?

A

-adds polyethylene glycol over surface of NP so it is not recognised by the RES

18
Q

How does a hydrophlic surface help improve active targeting to avoid RES? (2 points)

A
  • hydrophilic surface either by construction or coating with surfactant creates cloud of chains at the particle surface
  • this repels plasma proteins and prevents opsonisation [cloud effect]
19
Q

How does coupling a ligand to a NP improve active targeting to avoid RES?

A
  • the ligand can interact with its receptor at the target cell site
  • e.g. binding of folate to pyglayted particles for interaction with folate receptor
20
Q

How does magnetic field help to improve active targeting to avoid RES?

A

-Magnetic field can be used to orient the NP towards a magnetic field created at the tumour site

21
Q

What are the 5 types of nanoparticles?

A
  • dendrimers
  • nanospheres
  • nanocapsules
  • fullerenes and nanotubes
  • liposomes
22
Q

What are dendrimers?

A

-regularly branched 3D tree like structures with multifunctional central core

23
Q

What are nanospheres?

A

-spherical structures composed of matrix system where drug is distributed by entrapment, attachment or encapsulation

24
Q

What are nanocapsules?

A

-vesicular systems with central cavity/core

which is surrounded by an outer shell polymeric membrane

25
Q

What are fullerenes/nanotubes?

A

-family of molecules composed of carbon in the form of hollow sphere or ellipsoid tube

26
Q

What are liposomes?

A

-structures of closed vesicles composed of lipid layers, classified according to the number of lipid layers as either unilaminar or multilaminar

27
Q

What are examples of nanoparticles in clinical use? (3 points)

A
  • Paclitaxel
  • doxorubicin
  • Doxil
28
Q

What is the Paclitaxel NP formulation?

A

-Paclitaxel is incorporated in poly(lactic-Co-glycoli) acid nanoparticles

29
Q

What is the doxorubicin NP formulation?

A

-doxorubicin conjugated with dextran incorporated in chitosan nanoparticles

30
Q

What is the Doxil NP formulation? (6 points)

A
  • Pegylated liposomal doxorubicin.

- small particles (

31
Q

How are wafers used as DD cariers?5 points

A
  • Biocompatible polyanhidride polymer
  • rate of degradation well controlled with no residual foreign body
  • achieves near 0 order release
  • protects drug from hydrolytic cleavage
  • e.g. Gliadel wafers (implant)
32
Q

What is a new approach to cancer treatment?

A

-gene therapy

33
Q

What is gene therapy? (2 points)

A
  • Cancer in most cases is genetic disease caused by genetic aberrations and subsequent gene defects
  • Gene therapy introduces new genes in cells to replace a missing/defective gene
34
Q

What are the strategies for cancer gene therapy? (3 points)

A
  • introduction or reactivation of tumour suppressor genes
  • inactivation of oncogenes
  • introduction of genes that lead to expression of enzymes, proteins or that activate immune systems
35
Q

How will gene therapy avoid transduction of all cells in the body?

A

-it must be targeted to cells of interest

36
Q

How can gene therapy be targeted? (3 points)

A
  • use naked DNA by direct injection to tumour site
  • use of viral vectors
  • use of non viral vectors
37
Q

What are the advantages and disadvantages of injecting free DNA? (4 points)

A

+produces high levels of gene expression
+simple method
-limited to tissues easily accessible by direct inj. such as skin and muscles
-unsuitable for systemic delivery due to serum nucelase

38
Q

What are viral vectors? (3 points)

A
  • viruses are capable of transferring their genetic material into cells
  • viral vectors are biological systems which have been modified to eliminate toxcity but maintain ability gene transfer
  • e.g. retrovirus, adenovirus, herpes simplex virus
39
Q

What are the advantages and disadvantages with using viral vectors? (4 points)

A

+effective in achieving high efficiency for gene delivery and expression

  • low safety
  • immunogenicity
  • high cost
40
Q

How can non-viral vectors be used in gene transfer? (2 points)

A
  • these are delivery systems of cationic nature consisting of polymers and lipids
  • e.g. PEI, chitosan, dendrimers, coated cationic liposomes
41
Q

What are the advantage and disadvantages of non-viral vectors?

A

+suitable for large scale production
+low immunogenic response
+has possibility of selected modification and capacity to carry large inserts
-transfection efficiency is lower than that for viral vector

Pharmacy 408 pharmaceutical lectures (5 decks)

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