Principles of Cancer Therapy Flashcards
What are the three clinical presentations of cancer?
Local effects due to primary tumour
Distant effects due to metastases
Paraneoplastic syndromes
How do you investigate cancer?
Diagnosis
Staging
Functional assessment
What is the most effective cancer treatment?
Surgery-complete excision with margin of normal
What are the two types of radiation therapy?
Ionising radiation mode of cell death
Therapeutic radiotherapy
What is the definition of chemotherapy?
using chemicals to kill disease causing cells in the body
What is the definition of drug therapy?
using chemicals to modulate body processes
What is selectivity?
The goal of cancer chemotherapy in which toxicity is produced in the cancer cell without effects in the host cells
What is therapeutic index?
Indicator of selective toxicity
Ratio of dose required to produce toxic effect divided by dose required to produce desired effect
The gap between the dead healthy cells and the dead evil cells
At what point are cancer cells clinically detectable?
10^8
Why use combination chemotherapy?
Most effective but the different drugs must have different mechanisms of action and different side effect profiles
What are the pharmacological side effects of chemotherapy?
Mutagenesis
Antiproliferative
Microtubule disturbance
Sex steroid deficiency
What are some reasons for cancer chemotherapy?
High cure rates
With surgery
With radiotherapy
Palliation
