Chemotherapy, as you probably already know, is one of the most widely used therapeutic modalities in the treatment of cancer. It encompasses a wide variety of drugs, so many types of chemotherapy are available.
The goal of this type of treatment is to destroy cancer cells in order to reduce the disease. However, there are still no types of chemotherapy that only affect cancer cells, so they also damage many healthy structures, causing strong adverse effects.
Let’s see, throughout this article, the different types of chemotherapy that exist and their main characteristics.
Alkylating agents
Alkylating agents reach their highest level of activity during the resting phase of the cell and are not specific to the cell cycle. In turn, there are different types that are used in chemotherapy treatments:
Derivatives of mustard gas : cyclophosphamide, for example.
Ethyleneimines: hexamethylmelamine is one of them.
Hydrazines and triazines : altretamine and procarbazine, among others.
Nitrosureas: They are unique because, unlike most types of chemotherapy treatment, these can cross the blood-brain barrier, which is the membrane that protects the brain. That is why they can be useful in the treatment of brain tumors.
Metal salts.
Plant alkaloids
It is a type of chemotherapy that comes from certain plants. For example, vinca alkaloids are produced from vinca rosea or Catharanthus rosea . This group also includes the taxanes, whose origin is the Pacific yew tree.
All plant alkaloid chemotherapeutic drugs are, unlike the previous group, cell cycle specific. This means that they attack cells depending on the division phase in which they are. In addition to the vinca alkaloids and taxanes, podophyllotoxins and camptothecin analogs also belong to this group.
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