Treatment of cancer

There are three traditional approaches to the treatment of cancer-surgery, radiotherapy,

and chemotherapy. This chapter is devoted to cancer chemotherapy, but is important to
appreciate that chemotherapy is normally used alongside surgery and radiotherapy.
Moreover, it is often the case that combination therapy (the simultaneous use of various
anticancer drugs with different mechanisms of action) is more effective than using a
single drug. The advantages include increased efficiency of action, decreased toxicity,
and evasion of drug resistance.
As cancer cells are derived from normal cells, identifying targets that are uniue to
cancer cells is not easy. As a result, most traditional anticancer drugs act against targets
which are present in both types of cell. Therefore, the effectiveness and selectivity of
such drugs is dependent on them becoming more concentrated in cancer cells than
normal cells.
Tratamento do !ancer
"# tr$s abordagens tradicionais para o tratamento de c%ncer a cirurgia, radioterapia e
uimioterapia. &ste cap'tulo ( dedicado ) uimioterapia do c%ncer, mas ( importante ter
em conta ue a uimioterapia ( normalmente usado *untamente com cirurgia e
radioterapia. Al(m disso, ( muitas ve+es o caso de ue a terapia de combina,-o (a
utili+a,-o simult%nea de diversos f#rmacos anti-cancer'genos, com diferentes
mecanismos de ac,-o) ( mais efica+ do ue usar uma .nica droga. As vantagens
incluem o aumento da efic#cia da ac,-o, diminui,-o da toxicidade e evas-o de
resist$ncia aos medicamentos.
Tal como as c(lulas cancerosas s-o derivadas de c(lulas normais, a identifica,-o de
alvos ue ue s-o .nicos para as c(lulas de cancro n-o ( f#cil. !omo resultado, a
maioria dos medicamentos anti-cancer'genos tradicionais agir contra alvos ue est-o
presentes em ambos os tipos de c(lulas. /ortanto, a efic#cia e a selectividade destas
drogas ( dependente deles se tornando mais concentrado nas c(lulas cancerosas do ue
c(lulas normais.