what is the major of chemotherapy treatment?

Question

speak about alkylating agent

Answer 1

Alkylating chemotherapeutic agents all essentially will replace the Hydrogen-groups on DNA with alkyl groups, which causes the DNA to be dysfunctional and thus incompatible with survival and replication of the cell. In general, chemotherapeutic agents target cells that are rapidly replicating (i.e. cancerous cells), while resting cells (i.e. most bodily cells) are not affected.

However, targeting of actively-replicating cells is also responsible for most of the adverse effects associated with chemotherapeutic agents, such as loss of hair, GI ulceration, teratogenicity, etc -- because all of those cells (hair, intestinal mucosa, fetal) are all rapidly-replicating, and the drug does not make a distinction between the cancer cells and those cells.

Answer 2

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This site has alot of useful information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alkylating_agent

More good information at:
http://www2.mc.duke.edu/9200bmt/ABMT29.htm

This site, http://www.oncolink.upenn.edu/treatment/article.cfm?c=2&s=9&id=55, states that
"Alkylating agents kill cells by directly attacking DNA. Alkylating agents may be used in the treatment of chronic leukemias, Hodgkin's disease, lymphomas, and certain carcinomas of the lung, breast, prostate and ovary. Cyclophosphamide is an example of a commonly used alkylating agent."

Hope this helps!

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