Principle of Cancer Treatment

Question 1

Adjuvant vs Neoadjuvant therapy?

Answer 1

adjuvant: given following treatment of primary lesion
neoadjuvant: given before treatment to primary lesion

Question 2

Rationale for Neoadjuvant therapy?

Answer 2

1. Shrink tumour to make it easier to treat

2. Early treatment of micro-metastasis

Question 3

Drug to reduce neutropenia?

Answer 3

Granulocyte Colony Stimulating Factor (G-CSF)

Filgrastim

Question 4

Rationale for using multiple anti-cancer drugs?

Answer 4

reduce resistance

non-overloapping toxicity

Question 5

Rationale for time between chemotherapy

Answer 5

allows normal cells time to rebuild (better at this because of better dna-repair mechanisms)

Catch cancer cells in a different stage of their cell cycle