Chapter 23: Administration of systemic anticancer therapies
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Related theory
The advantage of the intra‐arterial route is that it facilitates the delivery of high concentrations of drug to the primary or secondary tumour mass (Sewell et al. [230]). A reduction in systemic circulating levels of drugs has been shown to occur in many circumstances, resulting in a corresponding reduction in side‐effects to the patient (Wilkes [268]). The cytotoxic drugs used vary with the histology and site of the tumour. All of the following have been administered via the intra‐arterial route (Weinstein and Hagle [265]):
- actinomycin D
- BCNU (carmustine)
- bleomycin
- cisplatin
- doxorubicin
- 5‐FU
- 5‐FUDR
- methotrexate
- melphalan
- mitomycin C
- vincristine.
The main disadvantage of this route is that very high levels of drug in a perfused organ may result in excessive tissue damage (Sewell et al. [230]).
