All medicines have some kind of secondary effect, either more or less serious. This is something that everyone knows, but sometimes there are some drugs that are necessary, so there is no choice but to take them. However, it is important that the benefits that this medicine will produce are greater than the harm it will do and, of course, be in contact with the doctor in case any reaction occurs.
One of the worst concerns about the use of some medications is that they can cause cancer. Below you can read the classification of chemical substances that cause this disease, published by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Something very important, before reading this list, is that the fact that a drug is included here only implies that it can cause cancer, but this is proven only in experimental studies performed on humans and animals. You also have to understand that nor does it indicate the risk or probability that the medicine can cause the disease.
That is, a chemical can cause cancer, animal experiments show, but the chance or risk of it causing disease in a human being is much more remote. Therefore, its use meets the requirement that the benefit is greater than the risk of its use. With this in mind, here is the list of some drugs that could cause cancer.
cancer drugs
This group of drugs is very broad but the hypothesis is that the same effect they have, that is, attack the DNA of the cancer cell to destroy it, could cause changes in the healthy cells and cause cancer. The list includes drugs that are very commonly used in the treatment of this disease, such as busulfan, chlorambucil, cyclophosphamide, etoposide, the combination of etoposide with cisplatin, and bleomycin.
Other drugs included in this list are melphalan, semustine, thiotepa, adriamycin or doxorubicin, carmustine or BCNU, cisplatin, dacarbazine, nitrosourea, nitrogen mustard and procarbazine. It is important to add that all these medications are very capable of curing cancer and only rarely they end up causing another tumor in patients in the future. That is why its benefits to treat this disease are much greater than the risk of the side effect.
antibiotics
In some animal studies, the lindanewidely used to kill lice, the chloramphenicol and the metronidazole have revealed that they can cause cancer. It is true that this risk is very small but, in case you need to use them, it is important to do so under indication doctor it needs.
Antidiabetics
Although the drug pioglitazone (Actos) is on the IARC list and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) itself has warned about it causing bladder cancer, recent studies they doubt that medicine can cause this disease. However, as with the rest, only the doctor is the person authorized to decide if it is convenient for the patient or not.
Immunosuppressants
The function of these drugs, which are very powerful, is to slow down the immune or defense system of the person and avoid, for example, rejecting a transplanted organ. Another option is to control an autoimmune disease such as lupus. Two drugs that are on this list are azathioprine and cyclosporine.
hormones
Hormone replacement therapies are also related to the breast cancer, especially in cases where they are prescribed during menopause. Similarly, tamoxifen, a drug used to prevent this type of cancer from coming back, can rarely cause endometrial cancer or the membrane that lines the inside of the uterus.
Other medicines of this type are diethylstilbestrol, oral contraceptives, which, however, protect women from ovarian cancer, androgenic anabolic steroids, progesterone, and propylthiouracil and thioureas, used in diseases of the thyroid gland.
Physical agents used in therapy
PUVA, which combines andl psoralen with ultraviolet A (UVA) radiation, It is recommended to treat psoriasis and other skin diseases. Another one included in this list is the radioactive iodine or I-131, very useful in the treatment of thyroid cancer, as well as the X-rays.
Antiepileptics
Phenytoin is an old drug but very useful against epilepsy. Studies link it to Hodgkin lymphoma or cancer of the lymph nodes.
antihypertensives
Reserpine is also listed by IARC as it is associated with the breast cancer, although some researchers are not sure of this.
