How does chemotherapy work?

How does chemotherapy work?

Christian Cable, Dr. Ryan Osborne & Dr. Noam Z. Drazin (Cancer Experts) gives expert video advice on: What is 'chemotherapy'?; What are the basic types of chemotherapy?; How does chemotherapy work? and more...

The most common chemotherapy type is called an alkylating agent. And an alkylating agent was first discovered in World War I as a poison. Mustard gas was the first alkylating agent. It was discovered active against leukaemia in the 1940's. And what it does, is actually form chemical bonds with DNA and interrupts the double-stranded DNA , so that when a cell goes to replicate, it is interrupted. And when a cell cannot replicate, it cannot grow. That's a common form. In fact, most chemotherapies interfere with the synthesis of cells in some way or another.