Chemotherapy is the type of cancer treatment that uses one or more anti-cancer drugs in a standard regimen. Chemotherapy may be given with a curative intent, or it may aim only to prolong life or to reduce symptoms. Chemotherapy is one of the major categories of the medical discipline specifically devoted to pharmacotherapy for cancer, which is called medical oncology.
Irofulven or 6-hydroxymethylacylfulvene is an experimental antitumor agent. It belongs to the family of drugs called alkylating agents.
Transcatheter arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is a minimally invasive procedure performed in interventional radiology to restrict a tumor's blood supply. Small embolic particles coated with chemotherapeutic drugs are injected selectively through a catheter into an artery directly supplying the tumor. These particles both block the blood supply and induce cytotoxicity, attacking the tumor in several ways.
Anthracyclines are a class of drugs used in cancer chemotherapy that are extracted from Streptomyces peucetius bacterium. These compounds are used to treat many cancers, including leukemias, lymphomas, breast, stomach, uterine, ovarian, bladder cancer, and lung cancers. The first anthracycline discovered was daunorubicin, which is produced naturally by Streptomyces peucetius, a species of Actinomycetota. Clinically the most important anthracyclines are doxorubicin, daunorubicin, epirubicin and idarubicin.
Epirubicin is an anthracycline drug used for chemotherapy. It can be used in combination with other medications to treat breast cancer in patients who have had surgery to remove the tumor. It is marketed by Pfizer under the trade name Ellence in the US and Pharmorubicin or Epirubicin Ebewe elsewhere.
Altretamine, also called hexamethylmelamine, is an antineoplastic agent. It was approved by the U.S. FDA in 1990.
Topotecan, sold under the brand name Hycamtin among others, is a chemotherapeutic agent medication that is a topoisomerase inhibitor. It is a synthetic, water-soluble analog of the natural chemical compound camptothecin. It is used in the form of its hydrochloride salt to treat ovarian cancer, lung cancer and other cancer types.
Topoisomerase inhibitors are chemical compounds that block the action of topoisomerases, which are broken into two broad subtypes: type I topoisomerases (TopI) and type II topoisomerases (TopII). Topoisomerase plays important roles in cellular reproduction and DNA organization, as they mediate the cleavage of single and double stranded DNA to relax supercoils, untangle catenanes, and condense chromosomes in eukaryotic cells. Topoisomerase inhibitors influence these essential cellular processes. Some topoisomerase inhibitors prevent topoisomerases from performing DNA strand breaks while others, deemed topoisomerase poisons, associate with topoisomerase-DNA complexes and prevent the re-ligation step of the topoisomerase mechanism. These topoisomerase-DNA-inhibitor complexes are cytotoxic agents, as the un-repaired single- and double stranded DNA breaks they cause can lead to apoptosis and cell death. Because of this ability to induce apoptosis, topoisomerase inhibitors have gained interest as therapeutics against infectious and cancerous cells.
Triplatin tetranitrate is a platinum-based cytotoxic drug that underwent clinical trials for the treatment of human cancer. The drug acts by forming adducts with cellular DNA, preventing DNA transcription and replication, thereby inducing apoptosis. Other platinum-containing anticancer drugs include cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin.
Satraplatin is a platinum-based antineoplastic agent that was under investigation as a treatment of patients with advanced prostate cancer who have failed previous chemotherapy. It has not yet received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. First mentioned in the medical literature in 1993, satraplatin is the first orally active platinum-based chemotherapeutic drug; other available platinum analogues—cisplatin, carboplatin, and oxaliplatin—must be given intravenously.
Pixantrone is an experimental antineoplastic (anti-cancer) drug, an analogue of mitoxantrone with fewer toxic effects on cardiac tissue. It acts as a topoisomerase II poison and intercalating agent. The code name BBR 2778 refers to pixantrone dimaleate, the actual substance commonly used in clinical trials.
Eribulin, sold under the brand name Halaven among others, is an anti-cancer medication used to treat breast cancer and liposarcoma.
Thymidylate synthase inhibitors are chemical agents which inhibit the enzyme thymidylate synthase and have potential as an anticancer chemotherapy. This inhibition prevents the methylation of C5 of deoxyuridine monophosphate (dUMP) thereby inhibiting the synthesis of deoxythymidine monophosphate (dTMP). The downstream effect is promotion of cell death because cells would not be able to properly undergo DNA synthesis if they are lacking dTMP, a necessary precursor to dTTP. Five agents were in clinical trials in 2002: raltitrexed, pemetrexed, nolatrexed, Plevitrexed( ZD9331/BGC9331), and GS7904L.
Apatinib, also known as rivoceranib, is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that selectively inhibits the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor-2. It is an orally bioavailable, small molecule agent which is thought to inhibit angiogenesis in cancer cells; specifically, apatinib inhibits VEGF-mediated endothelial cell migration and proliferation thus blocking new blood vessel formation in tumor tissue. This agent also mildly inhibits c-Kit and c-SRC tyrosine kinases.
Lipoplatin is a nanoparticle of 110 nm average diameter composed of lipids and cisplatin. This new drug has successfully finished Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III human clinical trials. It has shown superiority to cisplatin in combination with paclitaxel as a chemotherapy regimen in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) adenocarcinomas.
Edelfosine is a synthetic alkyl-lysophospholipid (ALP). It has antineoplastic (anti-cancer) effects.
NAMI-A is the imidazolium]] salt of the coordination complex [RuCl4(dmso)(C3N2H4)]− where dmso is dimethylsulfoxide and C3N2H4 is imidazole Together with KP1019 and BOLD-100, NAMI-A has been investigated as an anticancer agent.
Arabinopyranosyl-N-methyl-N-nitrosourea, also known as Aranose (Араноза) is a cytostatic anticancer chemotherapeutic drug of an alkylating type. Chemically it is a nitrosourea derivative. It was developed in the Soviet Union in the 1970s. It was claimed by its developers that its advantages over other nitrosoureas are a relatively low hematological toxicity and a wider therapeutic index, which allows for its outpatient administration.
Triciribine is a cancer drug which was first synthesized in the 1970s and studied clinically in the 1980s and 1990s without success. Following the discovery in the early 2000s that the drug would be effective against tumours with hyperactivated Akt, it is now again under consideration in a variety of cancers. As PTX-200, the drug is currently in two early stage clinical trials in breast cancer and ovarian cancer being conducted by the small molecule drug development company Prescient Therapeutics.
Canfosfamide an investigational anticancer drug that has been evaluated for its potential efficacy in treating a variety of solid tumors. TLK286 functions as a prodrug activated by the enzyme glutathione S-transferase P1-1, which is often overexpressed in cancer cells, leading to selective cytotoxicity towards tumor cells compared to normal cells.
