Medical drug carcinogens

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