Chemotherapy is, as the name suggests, the use of chemicals to treat disease. In the 1940’s scientists in the U.S. noted that autopsies of people exposed to mustard gas—a chemical weapon—showed significant reduction in the size of lymph nodes. Doctors then tried to inject nitrogen mustard into a non-Hodgkins lymphoma patient. The result was a reduce in the patients tumor size and, though temporary, the era of chemotherapy was born. Previously, there was really no credible treatment for cancer.
Renowned cancer researcher, Sydney Farber, then began to test the affect of folic acid in leukemia patients. His early findings were disturbing in that increased folic acid led to increased cancer cell levels. Thus, Farber began to consider antifolates, which could block the use of folic acid by certain bodily processes. This method was quickly criticized by Farber’s contemporaries but was used 10 years later to affect the first chemotherapeutic cancer cure.
Later years brought the development of more than a hundred chemotherapeutic drugs. A few new uses of these drugs broke important ground for cancer patients. These solutions seem like common sense but they are—to combine various chemotherapy drugs in what is called combination therapy; and to first remove the primary tumor through surgery and then administer chemotherapy. This latter method is known as aduvant therapy. |
