Chemical chemotherapeutics

Miscellaneous Agents. Those chemotherapeutic agents, which do not fit into any of the classifications discussed, ate Hsted iu Table 7. Mitotane (67), a stmctural isomer of DDT, is used to iaduce chemical adrenalectomies iu patients having adrenal cancer by teduciug host levels of adrenocorticosteroids. 

A.ntibiotic is an organic chemical substance produced by microorganisms that has the capacity in low concentration to selectively destroy or inhibit the growth of other microorganisms without injuring the host cells. It may be adrninistered systemicaHy and be an antimicrobial chemotherapeutic agent. 

Treatment for tumor patients with synthetic drags -chemotherapeutics - that may be of completely different chemical structure. The main goal of tumor chemotherapy is to achieve a selective toxicity for the tumor without causing damage to the host, for instance by combining several cytostatic drags at doses lower than required for monotherapy. 

The growth of bacteria, as with other living organisms, can be inhibited or prevented. Antiseptics, disinfectants, antibiotics and chemotherapeutic agents are the names given to special chemicals developed to combat infectioa They are discussed in later chapters. 

Regrettably, all chemotherapeutic agents have the potential to produce adverse reactions with varying degrees of frequency and severity, and these include hypersensitivity reactions and toxic effects. These may be dose-related and predictable in a patient with a history of hypersensitivity or a previous toxic reaction to a drug or its chemical analogues. However, many adverse events are idiosyncratic and therefore unpredictable. 

The adamantane moiety is of medicinal chemical interest because of its inertness, compactness relative to lipid solubilizing character, and symmetry. Considerable interest, therefore, was engendered by the finding that amantadine (78) was active for the chemoprophylaxis of influenza A in man. There are not many useful chemotherapeutic agents available for the treatment of communicable viral infections, so this finding led to considerable molecular manipulation. The recent abrupt end of the National Influenza Immunization program of 1976 prompted a new look at the nonvaccine means for prophylaxis or treatment of respiratory tract infections due to influenza A, especially in that the well-known antigenic shift or drift of the virus obviates usefulness of the vaccine but not amantadine. 

Martin, R.B., in Lippard, S.J. (ed.), Platinum, Gold and Other Metal Chemotherapeutic Agents, ACS Symposium Series 209, American Chemical Society, Washington DC, 1983, p. 231. 

Improved chemotherapeutic agents are under development, as are other approaches to managing leishmaniasis, including efforts to learn more about sand flies and the chemical signals they employ. One way to eliminate the infection is to eliminate the flies that... 

Anticancer drugs act on cells in active proliferation and may interfere with a specific phase of the cell cycle or act independently from it. Some of these drugs are naturally occurring compounds, identified in plants or microorganisms, some are synthetic chemicals. Among the major classes of chemotherapeutics include antimetabolites, alkylating agents, inhibitors of the... 

The preceding discussion is obviously incomplete. Furthermore, chemotherapeutic and other indications for the use of Catharanthus alkaloids are always changing. Nonetheless, it seems apparent that their inclusion in therapeutic regimens is, at least in part, responsible for the success of these regimens in both malignant and nonmalignant disease. It is hoped that, through chemical modification, their effectiveness will only increase. 

For the past 35 years. U.S. livestock and poultry producers have used antibiotics (products of microbial synthesis) and chemotherapeutics (chemically synthesized products). The drugs are administered in relatively large dosages to treat sick animals (therapeutically) and in lower dosages to prevent disease in exposed animals (prophylactica11 y). More commonly, small amounts... 

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