Paper II
2015 September (Supplementary) (2010 Scheme) · 40 marks · 120 min

Question

Pharmacological basis for the combined use of drugs in cancer chemotherapy.

Q121 marksShort Answers

Answer

Combination chemotherapy uses drugs with different mechanisms of action/cell-cycle specificity and non-overlapping toxicities. This achieves: (1) synergistic or additive cytotoxic effect on tumour cells acting via different pathways, (2) reduced likelihood of drug resistance developing (since simultaneous resistance to multiple different mechanisms is much less likely than to a single agent), and (3) since the drugs have differing toxicity profiles, each can be used near its own maximum tolerated dose without the combined toxicity to any single organ becoming prohibitive.

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