Anticancer chemotherapy

Schneider HB, Becker H. Dehydropyrimidine dehydrogenase deficiency in a cancer patient undergoing 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy. Anticancer Res 2004 24 1091-1092. 

Malik, N., Evagorou, E. G., and Duncan, R. Dendrimer-platinate A novel approach to cancer chemotherapy. Anticancer Drugs 10 767-776, 1999. 

Several currently available antiemetic drugs can prevent vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy. Anticancer drugs that cause vomiting are listed in Table 18.2. 

Tsavaris N, Kosmas C, Mylonakis N, Bacoyiannis C, Kalergis G, Vadiaka M, Boulamatsis D, lakovidis V, Kosmidis P. Parameters that influence the outcome of nausea and emesis in cisplatin based chemotherapy. Anticancer Res 2000 20(6C) 4777-83. 

Duncan, R. (1992) Drug—polymer conjugates potential for improved chemotherapy, Anticancer Drugs 3, 175-210. 

N. Malik, E.G. Evagorou, R. Duncan, Dendrimer-platinate a novel approach to cancer chemotherapy. Anticancer Drugs 10 (8) (1999) 767-776. 

Modem cancer therapy has been primarily dependent upon surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and hormonal therapy (72) (see Chemotherapeutics,anticancer Hormones Radiopharmaceuticals). Chemotherapeutic agents maybe able to retard the rate of growth, but are unable to eradicate the entire population of neoplastic cells without significant destmction of normal host tissue. This serious side effect limits general use. More recentiy, the immunotherapeutic approach to cancer has involved modification and exploitation of the cellular and molecular mechanisms in host defense, regulation of tissue proliferation, tissue differentiation, and tissue survival. The results have been more than encouraging. 

The development of injectable mictocapsules for deUvery of chemotherapy agents remains another active area of research. The ultimate goal is to achieve targeted deUvery of chemotherapy agents to specific sites in the body, ideaUy by injection of dmg-loaded mictocapsules that would seek out and destroy diseased ceUs. Intra-arterial infusion chemotherapy is a direct approach to targeted deUvery. The clinical appHcations of microspheres and mictocapsules in embolization and chemotherapy have been assessed (49) (see Chemotherapeutics, anticancer). 

In the veterinary as in the human patient, neoplasms are often metastatic and widely disseminated throughout the body. Surgery and irradiation are limited in use to weU-defined neoplastic areas and, therefore, chemotherapy is becoming more prevalent in the management of the veterinary cancer victim (see Chemotherapeutics, anticancer). Because of the expense and time involved, such management must be restricted to individual animals for which a favorable risk—benefit evaluation can be made and treatment seems appropriate to the practitioner and the owner. In general, treatment must be viewed not as curative, but as palliative. 

The cis isomer ( cisplatin ) is an effective anticancer drug. This reflects the ability of the two Cl atoms to interact with the nitrogen atoms of DNA, a molecule responsible for cell reproduction. The trans isomer is ineffective in chemotherapy, presumably because the Q atoms are too far apart to react with a DNA molecule. 

TNF was originally identified because of its cytotoxic activity against some tumor cell lines and its ability to induce hemorrhagic necrosis of solid tumors in various animal models. However, the clinical use of TNF as an anticancer drug has been so far limited by its severe cardiovascular side effects. Therefore, TNF treatment is limited to regional and local administration of high doses of TNF, often in combination with chemotherapy, as accomplished in isolated limb and isolated hepatic perfusion (ILP and IHP, respectively) [5]. In the case of ILP, typically metastases are treated, patients benefit from this procedure by salvage of limbs from a loss by amputation. 

T. Konno, Targeting anticancer chemotherapy for primary and secondary liver cancer using arterially administered oily anticancer agents, in Cancer Chemotherapy Challenges for the Future (K. Kimura, ed.), Excerpta Medica, Tokyo. 1987, p. 287. 

Georgopapadakou, N.H. (1995) Drug transport in antimicrobial and anticancer chemotherapy, Marcel Dekker. 

---