Common chemotherapy medications
Because there are many different types of drugs to treat cancer each type is grouped by what they are, what they may be combined with, and other grouping processes. One such way to group some of these types of chemotherapy drugs is on how they work.
This is because many of them work in more than one way and must be grouped accordingly. This is one of the reasons why it is very important to know exactly how a drug works. The other reason why it is important is because it can help in predicting the side effects. And in the end, an oncologist will be able to easier determine which drugs can be used and which ones work well together.
Furthermore, knowing which group a chemotherapy drug is in will help when the need to mix drugs arises. The doctors will have a better idea as to which drugs work well together and how to determine the dosage and cycles in which they are taken. But what about the types of drugs used?
Sometimes popular drugs like cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxalaplatin are added to this group because they tend to kill the cells in much the same way. However, these particular drugs are less likely to cause leukemia than alkylating agents.
The next types of chemotherapy drugs are called antimetabolites. Rather than destroying the DNA, these drugs get in the way of your DNA and RNA growth. They are most often used to treat leukemia, tumors of the breasts and ovaries, as well as cancers of the intestinal tract.
• Some examples of these drugs are; 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), capecitabine (Xeloda), 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP), methotrexate, gemcitabine (Gemzar), cytarabine (Ara-C), fludarabine, and pemetrexed (Alimta)/
There are even some drugs out there and biological treatments that can treat cancer, but are not classified as ‘chemotherapy.” While chemotherapy drugs fight against the cancer cells’ fast reproduction, these other drugs go after different characteristics that make cancer cells different than other cells. What’s more, these drugs are often less aggressive in nature when it comes to side effects when compared to the other different types of chemotherapy drugs because they only target the cancer sell, not the healthy cells.
And with these other drugs and biological treatments have come other advancements in creating chemotherapy drugs that will target just the cancer cell. And these new drugs as well as the biological treatments are often used side by side with more traditional chemotherapy options.
• Examples of these new drugs are; imatinib (Gleevec), gefitinib (Iressa), erlotinib (Tarceva), and bortezomib (Velcade).
Then we see differentiating agents that work to make cancer cells mature into normal healthy cells.
• These drugs would include; ATRA or Atralin and bexarotene (Targretin), and even at times you will see arsenic trioxide used.
And even hormone therapy has been used to help fight against cancer. These drugs are hormone-like drugs that change the production of either the male or female hormones, and are used to slow down the growth of some cancers like breast, prostate, and uterine cancers. The difference with these hormone-like drugs is that they keep the cancer cells from feeding off the hormones it needs to grow, or by preventing your body from producing hormones.
• Some of these drugs would include; the anti-estrogens fulvestrant (Faslodex), tamoxifen, and toremifene aromatase inhibitors, such as anastrozole (Arimidex), exemestane (Aromasin), progestins – megestrol acetate (Megace), estrogens, anti-androgens – bicalutamide (Casodex), flutamide (Eulexin), and nilutamde (Nilandron)
The next rounds of drugs you will find used are immunotherapy drugs. These are used to help stimulate a person’s natural immune system. The reason for this is because a healthy immune system would recognize these cancer cells and target them. In comparison to other cancer treatments, this is a still fairly new technique. What’s more, the different types of immunotherapy treatments range from active to passive.
An active immunotherapy works to stimulate your own immune system into fighting against the cancer. On the other hand, a passive immunotherapy will work with antibodies instead to fight against the cancer cells. There are even cancer vaccines that are being developed and tested to fight against cancer, but none have been approved by the FDA as of yet.
• Some of different types of immunotherapy drugs would include; monoclonal antibody therapy (passive immunotherapies) ,non-specific immunotherapies and adjuvants, these work to boost the immune system responses, immunomodulating drugs such as thalidomide and lenalidomide (Revlimid®)