Colon cancer is treated with several drugs that come under different treatments like chemotherapy and targeted therapy.
Chemotherapy is the kind if treatment that uses anti-cancer drugs that kills cancer cells. Chemotherapy is of two types, systemic chemotherapy and regional chemotherapy. In systemic chemotherapy the drugs can be administered intravenously or orally. In regional chemotherapy, drugs are put into the artery that reaches the part if the body with the tumor. Both these methods of chemotherapy use several drugs that include
- 5-fluorouracil
- Capecitabine
- Irinotecan
- Oxaliplatin
- Trifluridine and tipiracil (combination in pill form)
Targeted therapy drugs for colon cancer
Targeted therapy works very differently in comparison to chemotherapy. Sometimes they even work when standard chemotherapy does not and the side effects experienced by a person is comparatively different to the ones experiences with chemotherapy. In targeted therapy there are drugs that target different functions like:
Drugs that target blood vessel formation
Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a protein that helps to its form new blood vessels to get nutrients that they need to grow. The drugs that are used to stop this process are:
- Bevacizumab
- Ramucirumab
- Ziv- Aflibercept
Drugs that target cells with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) changes
Epidermal growth factor receptors are proteins that help cancer cells grow. Drugs that target these proteins are:
- Cetuximab
- Panitumumab