I take a medication (Methotrexate) to treat rheumatoid arthritis. The drug is also used to treat cancer in higher doses. Certain types of cancers are a potential side effect. How does a medication used to treat cancer also potentially cause it?
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Cancer are cells that are damaged in just the wrong way so that they multiply in an uncontrolled way.
Methotrexate in high doses damages cells. It damages cells more the faster they multiply because it disturbs their mitosis, wich makes it good at killing the fast growing cancer cells.
Sadly your other cells aren’t fully immune, they have to multiply too, so they get attacked to some degree as well. Some will be killed, but a few of them might be damaged in the way they become new cancer. This will also especially hit your fast growing cells like in your spinal cord or your intestinal mucosa.
This is kinda why cancer is so nasty and hard to cure. It’s your own cells going haywire, so it’s difficult to design drugs that hit the cancer but not your healthy cells reliably.
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