67-1
Chapter One
Principles of Chemotherapy
Angela Houlston
The history of the development of
chemotherapy
Chemotherapy is the term given to refer
to any drug or chemical treatment used to
treat any disease. Cytotoxic (or anti-neoplastic)
chemotherapeutic agents are used to treat
malignancy.
The development of cytotoxic chemotherapy
at the beginning of the twentieth century revolutionised
the treatment of cancer, especially
the treatment of disseminated disease such as
leukaemia. Crucial to the development of cytotoxic
chemotherapy was the discovery that certain
chemicals acted chiefly on any rapidly dividing
cells, and this includes cancer cells. During
the First World War it was noted that soldiers
who were exposed to nitrogen gas developed
an abnormally low white cell count. A derivative
of nitrogen gas, nitrogen mustard was first
used as an anti-cancer treatment in the 1940s.
Many of the cytotoxic drug ... read full excerpt from Cancer in Children and Young People ebook
