medical drug carcinogens
Last reviewed 01/2018
Some drugs used in a medical setting can increase the risk of cancer. These include:
- oestrogens:
- in early hormone replacement therapy regimes, unopposed oestrogens increased the risk of endometrial cancer; the same was also true of the early contraceptive pill; now both have progesterone physiological antagonism
- the combined contraceptive pill has also been implicated in cervical cancer and rare liver adenomas
- anabolic steroids - linked with liver hepatomas
- chemotherapeutic agents:
- alkylating agents, e.g. cyclophosphamide and bladder tumours, melphalan and bone marrow neoplasia
- busulphan and marrow cancer
- phenacetin - linked with renal pelvis cancer
- immunosuppressants: patients on immunosuppressive chemotherapy or with AIDS have a high incidence of skin carcinomas, high-grade lymphomas and vascular tumours such as Kaposi's sarcoma; it is likely that compromised immunosurveillance permits tumour growth