• Question: Hi, what actually happens in chemotherapy??

    Asked by jesssica14 to Clare, Mariana, Pedro, Robert, Susanne on 12 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Susanne Muekusch

      Susanne Muekusch answered on 12 Nov 2012:

      Hi jessica,

      chemotherapeutic drugs are poissons which kill dividing cells. Because cancer cells are dividing a lot, it is mostly the cancer cells that are killed. Unfortunately, we have also normal dividing cells in our bodies and those are killed as well. This is causing side effects, like the hair falling out.

      Is that a satisfactory answer or do you also want to know how chemotherapeutic drugs kill the cells? If you are interested, just tell me in the comments.

    • Photo: Clare Taylor

      Clare Taylor answered on 13 Nov 2012:

      That’s a good question Jessica. Lots pf people have heard of chemotherapy but don’t know exactly what it means or what actually happens. Chemotherapy is one of the possible treatments for cancer where we use chemical agents to kill cancer cells. It can be given to a patient in different forms: either as a tablet, an injection or even through a tube directly into a vein. Unfortunately, the drugs cannot tell the difference between rapidly growing cancer cells and some of our normal healthy cells which grow quite quickly such as cells that you find in: bone marrow (which makes blood cells), hair follicles, the lining of the mouth, and the digestive system. Because these healthy cells can be affected, people often suffer from unpleasant side-effects. Scientists are trying to develop different drugs so that we can have treatments that target cancer cells specifically, but as you can imagine this can be difficult.
      Did you know that there are more than 50 different type of drugs used for chemotherapy? That sounds like a lot but there are over 200 different types of cancer, so we do need lots of different drugs to try and treat the different kinds.

    • Photo: Robert Insall

      Robert Insall answered on 18 Nov 2012:

      One really interesting and unexpected thing about chemotherapy – quite a lot of the cancer cells kill themselves. They realise they are damaged, and commit suicide.

      Often the cells that survive chemotherapy – the ones that come back after most of the cancer is cured – can’t commit suicide properly.

      This was only discovered while I was a PhD student. Before that nobody had an idea how chemotherapy worked. They just new it sometimes cured people. Isn’t that frightening?

Comments

  • Photo: jesssica14

    jesssica14 commented on :

    That explains everything thanks, and no i didn’t know there were more than 50 different types of drugs, it does sound a lot! so what is the most common cancer?? 🙂

  • Photo: jesssica14

    jesssica14 commented on :

    But how do chemotheraputic drugs kill the cells??

    • Photo: Susanne

      Susanne commented on :

      Good question 🙂
      There are groups of chemotherapeutics who kill the cells in different ways. I will explain two for you.

      They all interfere with the cells ability to divide. For one cell to divide into two cells, different cellular functions are important, which are less important for non-dividing cells.

      The genome of a cell needs to duplicate before cell division, so that each daughter cell ends up with a genome of its own. One type of chemotherapeutic binds to the genome. The machinery that normally duplicates the genome by copying it, can’t read the template anymore. No genome duplication, no cell division.

      Another type of chemotherapeutic interferes with the skeleton of a cell (the so called cytoskeleton). This cytoskeleton can be imagined like ropes inside the cell. After the genome was doubled, one copy needs to go in one end and the other copy in the other end of the cell. The cell than cuts itsself into two cells in the middle. These processes- both the “genome separation” and the “cutting in half” are dependent on the ropes, which are necessary to pull things in place. The chemotherapeutic destroys the ropes. The mechanics don’t work- no separation into two cells, no cell division!

      Oh, that was more complicated to explain than I thought. Did you understand that? It is quite advanced, so let me know what you did not understand, if there is a problem.

  • Photo: Clare

    Clare commented on :

    Apparently the most common cancer is non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) which affects between 2 – 3 million people in the world. Luckily, this form of cancer is not usually harmful. You may have heard of malignant melanoma – one of the reasons that we use sun cream which is much more harmful but thankfully much rarer. Because NMSC is not usually harmful, it is not usually included in cancer statistics. Other cancers like lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer and bowel cancer are most common, although this depend on your lifestyle, habits and the country you live in. Scary stuff, eh?