Chemotherapeutics, definition

The standard test (and its major modifications) currently used for this purpose is technically an in vitro one, but it requires a sample of fresh blood from a dog or other large donor animal. The test was originally developed by the National Cancer Institute for use in evaluating cancer chemotherapeutic agents (Prieur et al., 1973) and is rather crude, though definitive. 

Prodrugs definitely will lead the way in novel delivery systems addressing the need for precise targeting and efficient delivery of cancer chemotherapeutics. The understanding of cellular mechanisms and continued advances in nanotechnology, material science, and engineering will continue to drive innovation in this field. 

The definition of receptors as specific sites for drug action owes much to the work of John Newton Langley [ 1852-1925 ] and Paul Ehrlich [ 1854-1915 ]. Their separate work on the autonomic nervous system and toxins and chemotherapeutic agents led to the concept of a receptor that possesses both recognition and transduction components and of chemotherapeutic molecules possessing discrete molecular features subserving specific functions ... 

I believe that now, when definite and secure foundations have been laid for the scientific principles. ..of chemotherapeutics, the way is visible before us. In the diseases involving protozoa and spirilla (ie trypanosomal diseases and syphilis) extraordinarily favourable results...have already been gained.... But in contradistinction to these diseases. the common bacterial diseases (diseases due to streptococcus, staphylococcus, coli, typhoid, dysentery but above all tuberculosis) will require a hard struggle. These words were to prove highly prophetic. 

Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to injure an invading organism without injury to the host. This definition therefore covers the antibacterial, antiviral and anticancer agents. In the first two, the invading organism is clearly distinct from the host. In the case of cancer, a family of diseases characterized by uncontrolled cellular proliferation, the organism is strictly not different but the treatment has a common aim, that of elimination of the unwanted cells. Thus, chemotherapeutic... 

According to Waksman s definition, antibiotics, which strictly speaking belong to the chemotherapeutical agents, are substances which are formed by microorganisms and which kill off other micro-... 

The first platinum drugs entered human clinical trials in 1971—1972. The trials culMnated in 1978 in the United States with approval for use of cisplatin in the treatment of testicular and ovarian cancers, and later to bladder cancer. Using the definition of chemotherapeutic sensitivity as in Table 2JII [8], a summary of the present clinical utility is given in Table 2.IV. 

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