The available anticancer drugs have distinct mechanisms of action which may vary in their effects on different types of normal and cancer cells. A single “cure” for cancer has proved elusive since there is not a single type of cancer but as many as 100 different types of cancer. In addition, there are very few demonstrable biochemical differences between cancerous cells and normal cells. For this reason the effectiveness of many anticancer drugs is limited by their toxicity to normal rapidly growing cells in the intestinal and bone marrow areas. A final problem is that cancerous cells which are initially suppressed by a specific drug may develop a resistance to that drug. For this reason cancer chemotherapy may consist of using several drugs in combination for varying lengths of time.

Chemotherapy drugs, are sometimes feared because of a patient’s concern about toxic effects. Their role is to slow and hopefully halt the growth and spread of a cancer. There are three goals associated with the use of the most commonly-used anticancer agents.

1. Damage the DNA of the affected cancer cells.
2. Inhibit the synthesis of new DNA strands to