Anticancer Drugs Health Article

Definition

Anticancer, or antineoplastic, drugs are used to treat malignancies, cancerous growths. Drug therapy may be used alone, or in combination with other treatments such as surgery or radiation therapy.

Purpose

Anticancer drugs are used to control the growth of cancerous cells. Cancer is commonly defined as the uncontrolled growth of cells, with loss of differentiation and commonly, with metastasis, spread of the cancer to other tissues and organs. Cancers are malignant growths. In contrast, benign growths remain encapsulated and grow within a well-defined area. Although benign tumors may be fatal if untreated, due to pressure on essential organs, as in the case of a benign brain tumor, surgery or radiation are the preferred methods of treating growths which have a well defined location. Drug therapy is used when the tumor has spread, or may spread, to all areas of the body.

Description

Several classes of drugs may be used in cancer treatment, depending on the nature of the organ involved. For example, breast cancers are commonly stimulated by estrogens, and may be treated with drugs which inactive the sex hormones. Similarly, prostate cancer may be treated with drugs that inactivate androgens, the male sex hormone. However, the majority of antineoplastic drugs act by interfering with cell growth. Since cancerous cells grow more rapidly than other cells, the drugs target those cells which are in the process of reproducing themselves. As a result, antineoplastic drugs will commonly affect not only the cancerous cells, but others cells that commonly reproduce quickly, including hair follicles, ovaries and testis, and the blood-forming organs.

Newer approaches to antineoplastic drug therapy have taken different approaches, including angigenesis— the inhibition of formation of blood vessels feeding the tumor and contributing to tumor growth. Although these approaches hold promise, they are not yet in common use.

Antineoplastic drugs may be divided into two classes: cycle specific and non-cycle specific. Cycle specific drugs act only at specific points of the cell's duplication cycle, such as anaphase or metaphase, while non-cycle specific drugs may act at any point in the cell cycle. In order to gain maximum effect, antineoplastic drugs are commonly used in combinations.