3 ms·

I had no idea that chemotherapy is basically intravenous mustard gas. Thanks for the insight!

• refurb 11y ago
  To be clear, some chemotherapies are mustard gas derivatives. Others act similarly (disrupting DNA), but work through other mechanisms. Treanda (bendamustine) is a great example of a nitrogen mustard that is still used in chemotherapy today. They've modified it a bit so it has better pharmacodynamics, but it's very similar to mustard gas! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendamustine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bendamustine
• InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Chemotherapy in general is mostly just poison. The general idea being that your body is more capable of bouncing back from damage than mutated cancer cells that have a runaway growth problem.
  • cperciva 11y ago
    It's a bit more than that. Cancerous cells will tend to absorb more chemotherapy drugs than non-cancerous cells do, because rapid cell division means that they're absorbing more of everything.
  • trhway 11y ago
    >Chemotherapy in general is mostly just poison. "slash, poison and burn" for surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy - a phrase from a well know cancer doctor mentioned on NPR couple days ago. As another commenter mentioned it isn't just a poison though. Just for example - the artemisinin - the anti-malaria drug that was discussed recently being the subject of the recent Nobel prize - is looking promising so far as a [low toxicity] chemotherapy drug due to the same super-oxide interaction with iron-rich cells that makes it an anti-malaria drug as cancer cells are iron-rich too.