My doctor has prescribed a chemo cream to treat several stubborn actinic keratosis areas on my face. I am supposed to use the cream on my entire face twice a day for 28 days. (Eeek !). My understanding is that the cream somehow gets into the cancerous cells (how?) and disrupts the cells ability to reproduce (how?). For a bonus..can you tell me why this process pushes all those nasty cells to the surface to die….making my face look like a living mutant zombie who didn’t fare well during the apocalypse! (Pic in comments)
In: Biology
Cancer treatments are a bit clumsy. We can’t target cancer cells perfectly.
But cancer has some key traits that we can target compared to most healthy cells. Most healthy cells grow only when they’re needed, like if you get an injury and need to heal. Cancer cells just grow all the time. They’re selfish jerks.
Most chemotherapies don’t target cancer cells specifically. Instead they target cells that are growing. This is why people undergoing chemotherapy lose their hair and taste buds. Because the chemo is killing ALL their constantly growing cells, good and bad. Hair follicles and taste buds need to constantly grow to do their jobs, so they get hit by friendly fire.
I’m guessing the dead stuff is getting pushed to the surface by the same mechanisms that push out puss and slivers and pimples, but that one’s outside my knowledge.
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