How was chemotherapy discovered?

As we have already told you, cancer exists among us since ancient times, so it is reasonable to think that remedies and treatments have been developed for a long time to combat and cure it.

The interesting thing about The story we will tell you today is that the main treatment for this disease was discovered by chance, which would constitute a serendipity, less than 80 years ago, and since then it is used.

How was chemotherapy discovered? ?

Chemotherapy is literally chemical-based therapy to treat any disease, although it currently refers to cancer treatment.

The story goes back to World War I.In the Great War, the Germans used chemical weapons profusely (although since ancient times they have been used, as we discussed in article 6 strange weapons of Antiquity).Among these weapons, the best known and lethal is the mustard gas , whose pr Imer employment was in 1917 at the battle of Ypres, although other authors indicate 1915.

How was chemotherapy discovered?

It is not exactly gas, but a liquid that was used with explosives; they vaporized and dispersed it through the air.What it does is really scary: only its contact produces blisters and wounds on the skin, between 4 and 24 hours after the exposure; and if you breathe it, the mucous membranes of the trachea, bronchial tubes and lungs are badly damaged, cause internal bleeding blisters that fill your lungs with blood, and then death.Imagine how terrible it was, that during World War II the The army never used it intentionally-although, of course, they had it at hand in case the enemy decided to use it-that's why they put on gas masks.

How was chemotherapy discovered?

And what does mustard gas have to do with chemotherapy? Well, the US government began to investigate how to get rid of this and other similar substances and for this I hire some researchers from Yale University, who dedicated themselves to studying the effects of these lethal gases in the search for possible antidotes.

In their research and experiments, Louis Goodman and Alfred Gilman came up with a nitrogen variant of mustard gas, the HN2 , and discovered astonished that it immediately killed the white blood cells, the cells that reproduce faster.That gave them the idea that perhaps it would be useful for other types of cells that also reproduce very fast: cancer cells.

The first tests were done in mice, and then in humans, verifying that HN2 seriously interfered with tumor growth.

How was chemotherapy discovered?

So he was born Chemotherapy, which is still used today in conventional cancer treatments.It does not always cure it, but it is effective in slowing growth, especially in the early stages of the disease.

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Images: Robert Blenkarn, Dave Campbell, Chris Devers, Nicki Dugan Pogue

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