Pharmacology 2060A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Chemotherapy, Prodrug, Angiogenesis

• School: Western University
• Department: Pharmacology
• Course: Pharmacology 2060A/B
• Professor: Andrea Di Sebastiano

Document Summary

Neoplastic; they have abnormal and uncontrollable cell growth. Characteristics of cancer cells: persistent uncontrollable cell proliferation. Invasive: cancer cells invade adjacent tissue and facilitate cancer growth, metastatic, the ability of cancer cells to travel to different sites in the body and invade to form new tumours. Immortal: cancer cells do not die, they continually divide, angiogenesis, cancer cells develop their own blood vessels to supply nutrients allowing them to proliferate. Treatment modalities for cancer: surgery: tumor removal, radiation: high energy radiation shrinks tumours and kills cancer cells, chemotherapy: drugs are used to treat cancer, chemotherapeutic drugs target rapidly dividing cells. The cell cycle: as the treatment of cancer involves targeting cell proliferation, an understanding of the cell cycle is essential for understanding the mechanism of drug action. Difficult early detection: cancer is almost always significantly progressed by the time it is diagnosed, various cancers have screening programs established in canada.