Cytarabine Totally Explained

Everything about Cytosine Arabinoside totally explained

Cytarabine, or cytosine arabinoside, is a chemotherapy agent used mainly in the treatment of hematological malignancies such as leukemia and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It is also known as ara C.

History

Cytarabine was discovered in Europe in the 1960s. It was approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration in June 1969, and was initially marketed in the US by Upjohn under the trade name Cytosar-U.

Mechanism

Cytosine arabinoside is an antimetabolic agent with the chemical name of 1β-arabinofuranosylcytosine. Its mode of action is due to its rapid conversion into cytosine arabinoside triphosphosphate, which damages DNA when the cell cycle holds in the S phase (synthesis of DNA). Rapidly dividing cells, which require DNA replication for mitosis, are therefore most affected. Cytosine arabinoside also inhibits both DNA and RNA polymerases and nucleotide reductase enzymes needed for DNA synthesis. Cytarabine is rapidly deaminated in the body into the inactive uracil derivative and therefore is often given by continuous intravenous infusion.

Clinical uses

Cytarabine is mainly used in the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia, where it's the backbone of induction chemotherapy, and in lymphomas. Cytarabine also possesses antiviral activity, and it has been used for the treatment of generalised herpesvirus infection. However, cytarabine isn't very selective in this setting and causes bone marrow suppression and other severe side effects, so it's used mainly for the chemotherapy of hematologic cancers.
   One of the unique toxicities of cytarabine is cerebellar toxicity when given in high doses.
   Toxicity: Leukopenia, Thrombocytopenia, anemia, GI disturbances, stomatitis, conjunctivitis, pneumonitis, fever, and dermatitis.
   Cytarabine is also used in the study of the nervous system to control the proliferation of glial cells in cultures, the amount of glial cells having an important impact on neurons.

Brand names

Cytosar-U
Tarabine PFS
Depocyt (longer-lasting liposomal formulation)

Further Information

Get more info on 'Cytosine Arabinoside'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://cytarabine.totallyexplained.com">Cytarabine Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.