What chemicals are used in Chemotherapy?
Question
Hey Chris,
Thanks so much for a great podcast!
My question is regarding the actual chemicals used in chemotherapy treatments for cancer. I understand the basic nature of the therapy as a poison that mostly affects the cancer cells, but I'm curious as to the specific chemicals that are used. Have the same chemicals been used for a long time, or are new one always being added/replaced? How many different chemicals are actually used in the treatment, or is it just one super-drug? Are different chemicals used for different types of cancer?
Kevin
Answer
David K. - Well, I think the original approach to systemic cancer treatment - after radiation and surgery had failed - was to use very toxic, poisonous drugs to try to get cancer cells to kill themselves.
As you might imagine, this caused a lot of toxicity with the side effects that most people are very well aware of with chemotherapy, and the products didn't work very well.
I'd say, over the last 15 years, we've come up with much better and more specific ways of targeting cancers using very clever specific molecules that turn cancer's pathways and genes off.
We've also come up with antibody therapy, which is using antibodies which humans make normally after infection and targeting these specifically to cancer cell markers on the surfaces of cancer cells.
This has been a very effective way to target breast cancer, with something called Herceptin, and also to turn off the blood supply to tumours with something called Avastin.
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