Cytotoxic agents toxic effects

Clinically, GM-CSF or G-CSF have been used to accelerate recovery after chemotherapy and total body or extended field irradiation, situations that cause neutropenia and decreased platelets, and possibly lead to fatal septic infection or diffuse hemorrhage, respectively. G-CSF and GM-CSF reproducibly decrease the period of granulocytopenia, the number of infectious episodes, and the length of hospitalization in such patients (152), although it is not clear that dose escalation of the cytotoxic agent and increased cure rate can be rehably achieved. One aspect of the effects of G-CSF and GM-CSF is that these agents can activate mature cells to function more efficiently. This may, however, also lead to the production of cytokines, such as TNF- a, that have some toxic side effects. In general, both cytokines are reasonably well tolerated. The side effect profile of G-CSF is more favorable than that of GM-CSF. Medullary bone pain is the only common toxicity. 

Studies carried out with complete cells in vivo, cell membranes and other cell fractions point to the selective oxidation of phosphatidylserine (26) to a hydroperoxide (PS-OOH) on oxidative stress caused by toxic agents such as H2O2, t-BuOOH and cumyl hydroperoxide (27). Formation of PS-OOH is observed during apoptosis. These phenomena are important because of the cytotoxic effects of various peroxides used in commercial products coming into direct contact with the human body, as is the case of epidermal keratinocytes in contact with cosmetic formulations" ". The toxic effects of f-BuOOH are associated with vasoconstriction and damage to the vascular smooth muscles ". Global determination methods for primary lipid oxidation products are discussed in Section IV.B. 

The evaluation of different chemicals involves identification of potential active agents and the mechanisms by which they present their toxic effect, prediction of effective pharmaceutical cytotoxicity for treatment of patients with cancer, evaluation of the activity range of the studied compound, identification of a target cell population and of the toxic concentration range, and the relation between pharmaceutical concentration and exposure period to reach a desired activity. The chosen assay system should provide a reproducible dose-response curve with low variability over a concentration range that includes in vivo exposure. In addition, the selected response criterion should present a linear relationship with cell number, and the information obtained with a dose-response curve should be related to the in vivo effect of the same active agent or drug. 

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