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GSK / Alkeran
How does it work?
Alkeran tablets and injection contain the active ingredient melphalan, which is a type of chemotherapy medicine to treat cancer called an alkylating agent.
Cancers form when some cells within the body multiply uncontrollably and abnormally. These cells spread, destroying nearby tissues. Melphalan works by stopping the cancer cells from multiplying. It does this by binding to and damaging the DNA in the cancer cells. This stops the cells from growing and multiplying.
Unfortunately, melphalan can also affect normal, healthy cells, particularly those that multiply quickly, such as blood cells and hair cells. The most important side effect is on the bone marrow where blood cells are made. Melphalan can decrease the production of blood cells, leaving people susceptible to infection. Regular blood tests are therefore needed to monitor the levels of blood cells.
In most chemotherapy regimens, doses are administered in courses at various intervals to allow normal cells to recover from the adverse effects of the anticancer medicines between doses. However, during this period, cancer cells will also recover and start to replicate again. Successful treatment depends on the administration of the next course of therapy before the cancer has regrown to its previous size, with the aimed net effect to decrease the amount of cancer with each successive course of chemotherapy.
Melphalan is used in the treatment of a range of cancers including bone marrow cancer (multiple myeloma), advanced cancer of the ovaries and advanced breast cancer. It is also used in the management of a disease called polycythaemia vera in which there are too many red cells in the blood. Melphalan can be used alone, or in combination with other anti-cancer medicines or surgery.
Melphalan can be taken by mouth as tablets, or it can be given by injection or infusion (drip) into a vein.
The injection can also be given via a procedure called regional arterial perfusion, to treat melanomas or sarcomas affecting a localised area of a limb, eg arm or leg. This is carried out under general anaesthetic. A tight band is first applied to the top of the limb to prevent the chemotherapy from reaching other areas of the body. The medicine is then injected into an artery in the arm or leg.
What is it used for?
- Cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow (multiple myeloma)
- Advanced breast cancer
- Advanced cancer of the ovaries
- Excessive levels of red blood cells in the blood (polycythaemia vera)
- Childhood neuroblastoma (by injection only)
- Localised skin cancer (malignant melanoma) affecting a limb (by regional arterial perfusion only - see above)
- Localised soft tissue sarcoma affecting a limb (by regional arterial perfusion only - see above)
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