Chemotherapy -Erbitux - monoclonal

Erbitux, also known as Cetuximab or C225 is the chemotherapy drug I receive every Wednesday. Strictly speaking it is a targeted therapy of monoclonal antibody type.

Until recently most chemotherapy drugs were drugs that targeted rapidly diving cells - cancer cells being some of the most rapidly dividing cells

Targeted therapy is about identifying other features of cancer cells, and designing drugs that attack only these cell features , thus only the cancer cells are attacked, and not normal cells cutting down on the side effects. Each targeted therapy works a little bi differently, interfering with the cells ablity to grow, divide, repair or communicate with other cells. Targeted drugs come in three broad categories:
1. Those that identify the special features of the outside wall of the cancer cells.
2. Several target special internal features of the cell
3. Several attack the blood vessels feeding the tumor itself - the anti-angiogenesis drugs.
As mentioned already Erbitux attacks the external target receptor and is thus a monoclonal antibody. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoclonal_antibodies

I have now had two doses of the drug, anministered intravenously over a two hou period. On both occasions I have felt very ill that night, But I swear the next day the tumor felt smaller! (Probably only wishful thinking)

Martha Stewart and Erbitux
Interestingly this is the drug that got Martha in trouble for insider trading! She heard that the FDA were not going to approve the dug for it's original use, and so dumped her shares! Sadly, for her,if she had never got the hot tip or had hung onto here shares, she would have made a killing, because shortly there after it became approved for colon and rectal cancers, and Has proven highly effective for treatment of squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck.

Frank