Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:3.5.1.1 (asparaginase)
 2,695 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Radiation is curative in many types of localized cancer, whereas chemotherapy is rarely curative in either localized or widespread cancer. For this reason, chemotherapy should never be employed in any situation where it might hinder or prevent the administration of a potentially curative dose of radiation. However, in Burkitt's tumor in Africa, where a multicentric origin seems to be much more probable, cyclophosphamide, 40 mg/kg intravenously repeated every 3 to 4 weeks, has occasionally been curative. In the treatment of Wilms' tumor, surgery, radiation and chemotherapy are essential for optimal results. In acute leukemia, chemotherapy with the conventional agents, as well as newer drugs such as cytosine arabinoside and L-asparaginase, is the treatment of choice, with radiation being useful mainly in treatment of localized disease in the bones or in the central nervous system. The great interest in L-asparaginase at the present time lies in the fact that certain neoplastic cells have a specific nutritional requirement for the amino acid L-asparagine, whereas no normal cells appear to have this requirement. In many cases of advanced neoplastic disease, the partnership of radiation therapy to reduce large bulky lesions composed to a large extent of nonproliferating cells, followed by chemotherapy to destroy the few surviving and now perhaps proliferating cells remaining in the original mass or in metastases, would seem to offer the greatest promise of theoretical and practical benefit.
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PMID:Chemotherapy and radiotherapy--competitors or partners? 437 33

The tremendous progress that has been made in the chemotherapy of malignant diseases since the early 1950's has enabled the cure of a significant number of cancers such as chloriocarcinoma, Burkitt's lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the acute leukaemias, testicular carcinoma, and many childhood cancers such as rhabdomyosarcoma, Wilm's tumor, Ewing's sarcoma, ovarian cancer, and retinoblastoma. As a result, the mortality from cancers has dropped by 15% for persons under the age of 45 years and even more for those under 30 years of age. Many other metastatic cancers can now be successfully controlled with chemotherapy and, ultimately, more will be added to the growing list of curable cancers. The chemotherapeutic agents responsible for the cures of some cancers include asparaginase, actinomycin D, Adriamycin, bleomycin, cisplatin, cyclophosphamide, cytosine arabinoside, 5-fluorouracil, 6-mercaptopurine, methotrexate, nitrogen mustard, prednisone, procarbazine, and vincristine. The discovery of new effective drugs such as AMSA and anthracenedione promises to improve the success rates obtained with present therapy. Chemotherapy is indicated for every patient who has metastatic cancer, since virtually every patient can receive some palliation from such therapy, while for some patients chemotherapy holds the promise of prolongation of life or even cure.
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PMID:The curability of advanced cancers with chemotherapy. 627 28

We report the clinical features and in vitro chemosensitivity assay findings of a 13-year-old girl who developed secondary B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) 7 years after a diagnosis of Wilms' tumor. The patient was treated using the Berlin - Frankfurt - Muenster (BFM) ALL chemotherapy protocol with poor response to initial therapy before succumbing to sepsis. An in vitro chemosensitivity assay on her peripheral blood lymphoblasts was performed while she was undergoing induction therapy and showed a high level of resistance to drugs commonly used for ALL therapy, e.g. steroids, anthracyclines, vincristine and L-asparaginase. The mechanism of chemoresistance was not elicited, but was probably not related to P-glycoprotein (P-gp) over-expression. We believe that the in vitro chemosensitivity assay is a good indicator of cellular response to chemotherapy and may provide reliable information for the basis of the selection of drugs to be used for the treatment of similarly rare patients rather than relying on "standard" protocols.
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PMID:Secondary B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia following Wilms' tumor: clinical and in vitro chemosensitivity studies. 1608 68