Chemotherapy

How antimicrobial chemotherapy works

The antimicrobial chemotherapy as the name indicates is the treatment of the cancer which deals with the microbes. The antimicrobial chemotherapy can be categorized according to three different methods namely sites of activity, effects on cells and range of activity. This treatment involves the process in which the effects and the work of the organisms stop when the body of the patient is subjected to the antimicrobial chemotherapy.

There are many toxicological characteristics of the antimicrobial chemotherapy. The first effect of the antimicrobial in this treatment is on the cells. Depending on the target and the effects of the cell the antimicrobials are classified into two groups. The drugs that are responsible for the killing the microorganisms are known as bactericidal and the drugs that hinders in the production and the growth of the microorganism is known as bacteriostatic. Depending on the type of the cancer a patient is suffering from the use of one among these two is decided by the doctor. However the complete removal of the cancer infection from the body depends on the activity of the host phagocytic. Penicillin Chloramphenicol, streptomycin sulfonamides and amino glycosides Tetracycline are the few bactericidal and bacteriostatic drugs.

The range of activity of the antimicrobial in the antimicrobial chemotherapy can be classified into five ranges. This chemotherapy treatment in the first instance include narrow spectrum. The narrow spectrum drugs actively works against only on a limited number of micro organisms. These drugs are usually antibiotics and works against the gram-positive organism. In the second range of the antimicrobials comes the moderate spectrum. This drug effectively deals with Gram-negative pathogens in the enteric, systemic and urinary tract and also against Gram positive pathogens. In the third category come the antibiotics of beta-lactam which also form the drug of moderate spectrum and narrow spectrum. This antibiotic is included in the first two categories because some of them can act against gram positive and the other kills the pathogens of gram negative. In the fourth group comes the broad spectrum. These drugs can effectively kill all the prokaryotes microbials with the exception of Pseudomonas and Mycobacteria. Finally the fifth group includes the drugs which functions against Mycobacteria.

Some of the common antibiotics used in the antimicrobial chemotherapy are Clostridium, Bacillus, Actinomyces etc. These are the narrow spectrum gram positive drugs. Some moderate spectrum gram positive drugs include streptomycin, gentamycin and tobramycin. The broad spectrum drugs include rifampin, streptomycin and etambutol.

There are several sites within the target of the cells on which the antimicrobial chemotherapy works. In this the antimicrobials either affects the production sites of the cells or the integration of the sites. The different sites on which this chemotherapy works are the plasma membrane, walls of the cells, the nucleic acids and the proteins. There are different antibiotics developed for this purpose to deal with the effects of the micro organism at different sites.

The antibiotics used in the antimicrobial chemotherapy do not always help in the eradication of the cancer cell in some people because these people become immune to the antibiotics due to earlier overuse of the antibiotics.