According to a report released by the American Cancer Society, cancer is the third most deadly disease on the planet closely followed by cardiovascular, parasitic and infectious diseases. It’s undeniable fact that in 2011, close to 13 million people have been diagnosed with this disease and therefore, cancer remains to be a significant threat to people even now. Luckily medications have made such great headway that you can even get anticancer medications on this website.Â
Benefits of anticancer drugs
‘Anticancer’ a term synonymous to the term ‘chemotherapy’ both refer to chemicals that can actually denature (change the molecular structure of cancer) cancer cells by arresting their growth.
While it’s true that cancer cells are targeted by these treatments normal body cells that have no affiliation with cancer cells also come under fire the foremost among them being:
- skin (such as hair follicle cells);
- bone marrow;
- gastrointestinal tract; and
- gonads (reproductive organs);
Additionally, your liver and your kidneys, which have slow growing cells, also become affected since they are organs that facilitate metabolism or are targeted by toxicity.
Classifying anticancer drug medications
There is no disputing the fact that up to now more than 100 different types of drugs have been taken either singly or in combination with other medications.
There is also little doubt that the most efficacious of these drugs have been and still are those with the propensity to be agents that physically damage DNA and which can be divided into different categories.
Alkylating agents
The most intriguing thing about this class of drugs is that they actually damage DNA doing so by adding methyl or other alkyl groups directly onto their nucleotide bases
By doing so these agents impede their own correct method of usage by base pairing which leads to the mutation and fragmentation of DNA, as well as the restriction of duplication and transcription of DNA .
While accomplishing this, these agents also manage to interfere with the cell respiration and intermediary metabolism through the alkylation of proteins and enzymes.
Some of the anticancer drugs that contain these alkylating agents include:
- chlorambucil
- cyclophosphamide
- melphalan and
- ifostamide.
Anti-metabolites
These make up the family of alkylating agents and are known as anti-metabolites.
Similar to the above agents, they also inhibitors that impede the synthesis of DNA and also inhibit the very much needed biosynthetic processes or are absorbed and incorporated into DNA, RNA, proteins and other macromolecules.
These drug medications can be regarded as either structural analogues for heterocyclic bases or they are agents that interfere with folate metabolism.
It’s known that the DNA building blocks include heterocyclic bases and folic acid.
They are also known to block the main steps in the process of formation of purine and phyrimidine bases and also nucleotides
Included in this class of anti-metabolite medication are:
- antifolates (methotrexate, pemetrexed)
- antipyrimidines (5-vluorouracil, capecitabine, eniluracile, and
- antipurines (6-mercaptopurine, 6-thioguanine).
Antitumor antibodies and Topoisomerase inhibitors
These medications also fall under the anti-metabolite alkylates as they are a sub-group of same. What is unique about these antitumor antibiotics and topoisomerase inhibitors are procured from the culturing of certain types of microorganisms.
Some examples of these antibiotics include the following:
- Epirubicin
- Doxorubicin (Adriblastina)
- Mithramycin
- Daunorubicin (Remember Cerubi)
- Mitomycin
- Bleomycin (Bleoc’s)
Additionally, the topoisomerase inhibitors also inhibit or interfere with the action of topoisomerase I and II enzymes. What are these enzymes?
These enzymes are responsible for controlling and regulating structural changes in DNA which can include DNA duplication, recombination, transcription, and the improvement of chromatin through changes.
Chromatin is a substance that forms chromosomes and also contains DNA, RNA and a variety of other proteins.
These essential inhibitors comprise:
- Comptothecin, irinotecan, and topotecan for Topoisomerase I;
- Etaposide (VP-16), teniposide, doxorubicin, daunorubicin, ellipticine etc., for Topoisomerase II.
What do these drug medications do? They interfere or impede the propensity of topoisomerase to bind itself to the nuclei of acid molecules.
While these drug types possess efficacy in the clinical sense, they nevertheless have undesirable and/or adverse effects such as such as myelosuppression, drug resistance and low bioavailability issues.
To make matters more involved, some of these antibiotics can lead to either the disruption or stabilization of DNA causing them to be labeled as poisons for topoisomerase.
The other inhibitors of topoisomerase mentioned here cleave onto an enzyme or DNA and impede the catalytic boost of the enzyme by succeeding in stopping it from using its binding ability.
Herbal remedies
These drug medications effectively display their impacts on mitosis metaphase with their propensity to prevent the formation of spindle.
One of them, Etoposide VP-16 (Vepesid), an efficacious anticancer drug, has been administered for the treatment of an extensive spectrum of human cancers for over twenty years now.
Unfortunately however, its application over a wide area of usage has been impeded by what is known as multidrug resistance (MDR), by its low solubility in water, and by its toxicity.
The new derivatives consisting of benzoxazoles and benzimidazoles and associated fused heterocyclic compounds that have emerged from Etoposide VP-1epesid), have displayed a propensity for preventive activity against eukaryotic DNA topoisomerase II.
Some other examples of herbal remedies include:
- Vindesin (Eldisine)
- Vinblastine (Velber A)
- Teniposide (VM 26-Bristol)
- Vincristine (Oncovin)
- Podophyllotoxin
Hormones and hormone antagonists
These hormone antagonist medications are primarily used for the treatment of tumors that have been caused by hormones or more specifically, hormonal imbalance.
The two main examples of these hormonal antagonists include:
- Glucocorticoid hormones and
- Estrogens.
The endogenous estrogens that are found ion women are actually steroid hormones which have consequential impacts.
These consequences mainly involve the lack of estrogen hormones in postmenopausal women which have been reported that include the following:
- Postmenopausal symptoms
- Increased risks of osteoporosis
- Coronary heart disease and
- Alzheimer’s disease
A cumulative exposure to estrogen would, on the other hand, boosts the development of female reproductive cancers. Examples of these features can include:
- Breast cancer
- Uterus cancer, that are found to be associated with hormone replacement treatment
- Early menarche and late menopause
The impacts of estrogens in physiological and pathological channels will mainly depend on their ability to fasten themselves to estrogen receptors. Estrogens also have the tendency to activate the transcription of estrogen responsive genes.
Anti-cancer drug benzodihydro [a] (BDHC) which has been widely used for the treatment of breast cancer, and which mainly targets the human estrogen receptor (hER), has been thoroughly studied with very encouraging results.
Other medications
Medications that are also used as anticancer drugs have included:
- Amascrine (Amsidyl
- Platinum-based drugs (cisplatin, carboplatin)
- Hydroxyurea (Hydrea), and
- L-asparaginase (Crasnit’s)
Harmful effects of anticancer drugs
Bottom line
The development of cancer treatment has overtaken many other types of treatment in leaps and bounds over the years perhaps because of the level of urgency and highly debilitating impacts on the human body and the one suffering from it. This is attested by the integration of chemotherapy with surgery and radiation therapy but even more by the plethora of medications that are available as treatment which you can obtain right now on this online website.
