Basic Principles Of Cancer Chemotherapy

Front 1

What are the most common cancers for men?

Back 1

Prostate
Lung
Colorectal

Front 2

What are the most common cancers for women?

Back 2

Breast
Lung
Colorectal

Front 3

What is the role of drug therapy in cancer?

Back 3

Treatment for Disseminated cancers
Adjunct to surgery and irradiation for Localized Cancers

Front 4

What is the major problem with chemotherapy?

Back 4

Toxicity to normal dividing cells

Front 5

What are some characteristics of cancer cells?

Back 5

Persistant Proliferation
Invasive Growth
Formation of Metastases
Immortality

Front 6

What is a Matastase?

Back 6

Secondary Tumor that appears at sites distant from the primary tumor

Front 7

What causes cancer cells to have persistant proliferation?

Back 7

Unresponsive to the feedback mechanisms that regulate cellular proliferation in healthy tissue

Front 8

What give cancer cells immortality?

Back 8

Telomerase becomes active permitting repeated division of DNA caps

Front 9

What cause cancer?

Back 9

Activation of oncogenes
Inactivation of tumor suppressor genes

Front 10

What is the growth fraction?

Back 10

The ration of proliferating cells to G0 cells (resting)

Front 11

Chemotherapy drugs are more toxic to tissues with a low growth fraction than to tissues with a high growth fraction.
T or F

Back 11

False
Chemotherapy drugs are very less toxic to tissues with a low growth fraction than to tissues with a high growth fraction.

Front 12

Solid tumors have a (low/high) growth fraction while disseminated cancers have a (low/high) growth fraction.

Back 12

low
high

Front 13

What normal cells are anticancer drugs most toxic to?

Back 13

High Growth Fraction Cells
Bone Marrow
GI epithelium
Hair Follicles
Germinal epithelium of the testes

Front 14

Why are anticancer drugs toxic to high growth fraction normal cells?

Back 14

Lack selective toxicity

Front 15

What is needed to destroy cancer?

Back 15

Eliminate every malignant cell from the body
Each round of therapy is the same dose with the same fraction of cancer cell loss

Front 16

What are some difficulties of cancer chemotherapy?

Back 16

Each round of therapy the dosage is the same with a constant percentage loss of cells
Anticancer drugs weaken immune function
No way of knowing when to stop therapy

Front 17

What are some challenges of cancer detection?

Back 17

Cancer is usually advanced by the time they are large enough to be discovered
May have already metastased

Front 18

Early detection in cancer treatment is important.
T or F

Back 18

True

Front 19

Why are solid tumors less responsive to anticancer drugs?

Back 19

G0 cells do not perform the activities that anticancer cells disrupt

Front 20

What is the process of recruitment?

Back 20

A solid tumor is reduced by surgery or irradiation and the cells leave G0 phase to start dividing again

Front 21

Cancer therapy can develop resistance to the drugs.
T or F

Back 21

True
Major cause of therapeutic failure

Front 22

What drug transport protein and confer multiple drug resistance?

Back 22

P-glycoprotein

Front 23

Are tumor cells are the same type of cell?

Back 23

No, there may be subpopulations of dissimilar cells

Front 24

Tumors can be difficult to treat due to location or blood supply.
T or F

Back 24

True

Front 25

How do cancer cells become drug resistant?

Back 25

Spontaneous mutations that are not caused by the drug itself but drugs can offer selective pressure favoring mutant cells

Front 26

What is the principle of intermittent therapy?

Back 26

Normal cells have a chance to repopulate between rounds of therapy
Normal cells must grow faster than malignant cells

Front 27

What are the benefits of combination therapy?

Back 27

Suppression of drug resistance
Increased cancer cell kill
Reduced injury to normal cells

Front 28

What are the guidelines for cancer chemotherapy drug selection?

Back 28

Drugs should have different mechanisms of action with minimally overlapping toxicities

Front 29

Why are dosing schedules critical in cancer therapy?

Back 29

Drugs are cell phase specific

Front 30

What are the major toxicities of chemotherapy?

Back 30

Bone Marrow Suppression
Digestive Tract Injury
Nausea and Vomiting
Others

Front 31

What are the major effects of bone marrow suppresion?

Back 31

Infection (Loss of neutrophils)
Bleeding (Loss of thrombocytes)
Anemia (Loss of erythrocytes)

Front 32

What can help with the risk of infection?

Back 32

Daily examination and cleaning of skin and oral cavity
Stay at home
Precautions to prevent nosocomial infection

Front 33

What are the major effects of GI injury?

Back 33

Stomatitis
Diarrhea

Front 34

What is stomatitis?

Back 34

Inflammation of oral cavity

Front 35

What causes diarrhea in cancer chemotherapy patients?

Back 35

Epithelial Lining is injured and fluid and solute absorption is impaired

Front 36

What can reduce nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients?

Back 36

Premedication with antiemetics

Front 37

What is alopecia?

Back 37

Hair Loss (injury to hair follicles)

Front 38

Cancer therapy can cause reproductive toxicity.
T or F

Back 38

True
Amenorrhea, Menopausal symptoms, and atrophy of vaginal epithelium
Irreversible sterility in males

Front 39

What is Hyperuricemia?

Back 39

Excessive level of uric acid in the blood from breakdown of DNA
Injury to the kidneys secondary to deposition of uric acid crystals in tubules

Front 40

What are vesicants?

Back 40

Cause severe local injury if they make direct contact with tissues

Front 41

Cancer chemotherapy can cause cancer.
T or F

Back 41

True

Front 42

What must therapy offer for it to be justified?

Back 42

Cure, Palliation, or Prolongation of Life

Front 43

What is the Karnofsky Performance Scale?

Back 43

General Health Status is assessed by this scale