RT Book, Section A1 Sachs, Teviah E. A1 Ahuja, Nita A2 Morita, Shane Y. A2 Balch, Charles M. A2 Klimberg, V. Suzanne A2 Pawlik, Timothy M. A2 Posner, Mitchell C. A2 Tanabe, Kenneth K. SR Print(0) ID 1145755574 T1 Targeted Therapy T2 Textbook of Complex General Surgical Oncology YR 2018 FD 2018 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9780071793315 LK hemonc.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1145755574 RD 2024/03/29 AB Chemotherapy has been the mainstay of systemic treatment of cancer for nearly 75 years. Chemotherapy can be broadly classified as either cytotoxic (killing rapidly dividing cells) or cytostatic (preventing further replication of rapidly dividing cells). However, chemotherapy is not specific to cancer cells, and will also affect normal cells which have high turnover, such as those in the gastrointestinal tract (leading to inflammation and sloughing of the GI tract), hair follicles (leading to alopecia), and in the bone marrow (leading to anemia, thrombocytopenia, and leukopenia). Many of the targeted therapies we use and will discuss in this chapter are cytostatic drugs, and implemented to retard growth, while traditional chemotherapies—such as alkylating agents and antimetabolites—are cytotoxic and lead to apoptosis of the affected cells.