Term
| What is the most common approach to the treatment of cancer? |
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Definition
-surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are standard treatments for cancer
-strategies for treatment of cancer depend on the type and how far it has spread
-most commonly: the primary tumor is removed surgically, followed by radiation and/or chemotherapy to destroy remaining cancer cells
-targeted therapies are now available for some types of cancer |
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Term
| Radiation as cancer therapy (radiation therapy) -- how does it work? Why does it work? |
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Definition
-uses high-energy X-rays to kill cancer cells in two ways:
1. DNA damage caused by radiation activates the p53 pathway, so if it is still functional in tumor cells, it can trigger apoptosis
2. Radiation causes such severe DNA/chromosomal damage that cells cannot proceed successfully through mitosis |
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Term
| p53 pathway -- how does it work? what does it do? |
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Definition
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Term
| Chemotherapy -- what are the four main types of chemotherapy drugs? |
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Definition
| Antimetabolites, alkylating agents, cytotoxic antibiotics, plant-derived drugs |
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Term
| antimetabolites (part of chemotherapy) |
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Definition
| Inhibit metabolic pathways required for DNA synthesis by competitively inhibiting synthetic enzymes |
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Term
| Alkylating agents (re: chemotherapy) |
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Definition
| Inhibit DNA function by crosslinking the DNA double helix, which prevents replication |
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Term
| cytotoxic antibiotics (re: chemotherapy) |
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Definition
| substances made by microorganisms that inhibit DNA replication by binding to DNA or inhibiting topoisomerases required for unwinding DNA during replication |
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Definition
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Term
| plant-derived drugs (re: chemotherapy) |
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Definition
| either inhibit topoisomerases or disrupt microtubules of mitotic spindle |
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Term
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Definition
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Term
| COLCHICINE (?) AND OTHER DRUGS THAT MESS WITH MICROTUBULES |
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Definition
| NEED TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MICROTUBULES |
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Term
| Problems with chemotherapy drugs? |
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Definition
-problem with these drugs and with radiation is that they are so toxic to normal dividing cells in addition to cancer cells
-also: cancer cells often develop resistance to chemotherapy drugs |
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Term
| How can cancer cells develop resistance to chemotherapy drugs? |
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Definition
-multiple drug resistance arises when cancer cells begin to produce multidrug resistance transport protein (a type of ABC transporter) that pumps a range of chemically dissimilar drugs out of the cell
-treatment that leaves behind even a small number of cancer stem cells may allow the tumor to grow back after treatment |
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Definition
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Term
| Hormone-depend tumors -- methods of treatment? |
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Definition
-some cancers require specific hormones for growth; ex: many breast cancers require estrogen for their growth
-preventing access of the cancer cells to the needed hormone can be an effective treatment
-tamoxifen is an antagonist of the estrogen receptor in the breast tissue --> used to treat breast cancer and can prevent breast cancer in high risk women. HOWEVER, tamoxifen increases the chances of uterine cancer because it acts as an agonist of the estrogen receptor there |
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Term
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Definition
-immunotherapy can be used to treat some aggressive types of cancer that are resistant to other types of treatment
-ex: triggering an immune response with the bacteria bacillus Calmette Guerin elicits a strong (but local) immune response in the patient
-treatment with proteins that the body uses to stimulate the immune system is sometimes used |
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Term
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Definition
| used in immunotherapy -- can trigger a strong, but local immune response in cancer patient. Use of this bacteria in bladder cancers after surgical removal of tumor seems to reduce the likelihood of cancer recurrence. |
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Term
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Definition
| used as a part of immunotherapy; goal with these vaccines is to stimulate the immune system to attack cancer cells --> Provenge is a therapeutic vaccine used to treat advanced prostate cancer |
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Term
| Provenge --> why is it important? what does it do? |
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Definition
-Provenge is a therapeutic vaccine used to treat advanced prostate cancer
-only approved therapeutic vaccine used to treat advanced prostate cancer
-very expensive; uses an antigen commonly found in prostate cancer cells in combination with immune cells obtained from the patient's blood |
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Term
| preventative vaccines -- what do they do? Give an example |
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Definition
-vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix protect against most common strains of HPV and thus against cancers caused by HPV
-hepatitis B vaccine reduces the chances of liver cancer because this virus is known to cause liver cancer |
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Term
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Definition
-in molecular targeting, drugs are designed to specifically target proteins critical to the cancer cell
-targeted therapies are being developed to target each of the cancer hallmarks/enabling trains, individually or in combination |
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Term
| What are the two major classes of targeted therapies in molecular targeting? |
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Definition
| monoclonal antibodies and small molecule drugs |
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Term
| What is the most common type of antibody? |
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Definition
| lgG; they are produced by B lymphocyte cells (plasma B cells) |
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Term
| What is the structure of an lgG? |
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Definition
| Two heavy chains and two light chains; they are held together by disulfide bonds |
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Term
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Definition
-found on lgG
-contains two identical hypervariable antigen binding sites formed by heavy and light chains |
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Term
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Definition
-found on lgG
-same for all lgG molecules; has a conserved glycosylation site and interacts with other cells of the immune system (phagocytes, natural killer (NK) cells, etc.)
-these interactions can trigger antibody-mediated phagocytosis or antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), leading to infected cells' death
-Fc regions are species specific |
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Term
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Definition
-antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity -- can lead to infected cells' death
-can be triggereed by interactions between Fc region of lgG antibodies and phagocytes, natural killer cells (NKs), etc. |
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