Cancer cell characteristics and how chemotherapy fights them


Every cell in the body includes a genetically programmed clock that directs the timing of their reproductive activity. Cancer is really a disease in that the cells neglect to react to the homeostatic mechanism that controls cellular birth and death processes. Even though development of cancer cells is dysfunctional and uncontrolled, the cells of cancer undergo the various phases of the cell cycle that normal cells do. Four basic features differentiate cancer cell in the normal cell:

Cancer cells have similar chemical structures as normal cells do; the critical change seems to be in growth and differentiation. Cell production in cancer isn't proportional to cell loss; manufacture of new cells occurs quicker than is required to make amends for losing cells.

Cellular kinetics

Most chemotherapeutic drugs exert cytotoxic activity totally on macromolecular synthesis or function. What this means is that they interfere either using the synthesis of DNA, RNA, or proteins or using the appropriate functioning of the preformed mol-ecule.

If this interference happens, a proportion of the cells die. Chemotherapy works on the principle of first-order kinetics, which postulates that the amount of tumor cells killed by an antineoplastic representative is proportionalto the dose used. This can be a constant percentage of the final amount of malignant cells present.

If your tumor containing 1 million cells is subjected to a drug that includes a 90% cell kill rate, the first chemotherapy dose will destroy 90%, or 900,000, of the cancer cells. The 2nd dose will kill another 90% of the remaining cells, and 10,000 cells can survive. Since some of the cells die, expecteddoses of chemotherapy should be repeated to lessen the populace of cancer cells until just one cell remains. It's hoped that your body's immune response will get rid of the final cell.

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Note: This article was sent to us by: Alan Reed at 07252011

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