Saturday, June 2, 2012

chemotherapy

chemotherapy its a term for the drug treatment of parasitic infections without causing injury to the human. these chemotherapeutic agents can be classified according to several characteristics for example they can classify into:
  1. anitbacterial
  2. antifungal 
  3. antiviral 
  4. antiprotozoal 
  5. antiheslmentics 
in turn antibacterial agents can be classified by their action into:
  1. bacteriostatics; arrest the bacteria growth without killing them; e.g. all sulfonamides  
  2. bactericidals; agents that kills bacteria; e.g., aminoglycosides 
note: some agents (drugs) depending on the dose will be bactericidal or bacteriostatics; if present in high dose they are  bactericidal & on low doe they are bacteriostatics

Factors that determine if the drugs is bactericidal or bacterostatics:
  1. the mechanism of action of the drug 
  2. the dose (refers here to the concentration of the drug at the site of action) 
  3. type of microorganism 
also the chemotherapeutic agent could be classified according to the spectrum of activity into:
  1. Narrow Spectrum 
  2. Extended Spectrum 
  3. broad spectrum 
General Principal of chemotherapy:
  1. making the diagnosis; as doctor you must know type of infection, the organism & sensitivity testing
  2. removal of barrier; making a way for antibiotics to attack the site of infection (if Abscess present then we must open that abscess, drain the buss & clean it very well; so that antibiotics will works very well) 
  3. is chemotherapy is a necessary 
  4. select the best drugs; refers to "Specificity of the drug" & this done by knowing the pharmacokientics of the drugs; what its the best the drug in case of pregnancy & lactating or if the patient have allergy to certain agents 
  5. the cost 
  6. optimum dose & frequency  

Bacteria :Growth & osmatic pressure

Its important to understand how bacteria grow; so that in the condition of disease we can interfere with it. we will consider some requirement of bacteria to grow; several factors influence of bacteria & these includes Temperature, osmotic pressure, pH, Barometric pressure, Gases, Radiation, & Chemicals & presence of neighboring microbes

1. Osmotic pressure
we can define it as the power that drive the solvents across a semi-permeable membrane from low concentration solvent to high concentration.
the concentration of solute play an important role in the growth of bacteria, for example the concentration of salts in pickling inhibits the growth of bacteria; although there are some bacteria that are able to grow (tolerate high concentration of salts) & these called Halophiles 
Based on the concentration of solute we classify into:
  1. Hypertonic
  2. Hypotonic 
to make it easy to understand difference between hypertonic & hypotonic we will compare bacteria with RBC (Red Blood Cell)
In Hypertonic 
  • if we put RBC in hypertonic solution --- RBC will shrink & know RBC will call "crenated red blood cell
  • if we put Bacteria; here will have a different condition because of the presence of cell wall & the cell will shrink & bacteria will call now "Plasmolysis"
In Hypotonic
  • in the case of RBC The Solvent will pass to cell ---- RBC will swell & explode --- this will call hemolysis
  •  In case of Bacteria; it will swell but will not explode; because of the cell wall --- this called Palsmoptysis