
Paclitaxel is approved to be used alone or with other drugs to treat:
- AIDS-related Kaposi sarcoma. It is used as second-line therapy.
- Breast cancer. It is used: In patients with node-positive disease. It is given as adjuvant therapy with doxorubicin hydrochloride -containing combination chemotherapy. ...
- Non-small cell lung cancer. It is used with cisplatin as first-line therapy in patients whose disease cannot be treated with surgery or radiation therapy.
- Ovarian cancer that is advanced. It is used with cisplatin as first-line therapy or alone in patients who have already received other treatment.
What kind of cancer can paclitaxel be used for?
Use in Cancer. Paclitaxel is approved to be used alone or with other drugs to treat: AIDS-related Kaposi sarcoma. Breast cancer. Non-small cell lung cancer. Ovarian cancer.
Where can I find FDA label information for paclitaxel?
FDA label information for this drug is available at DailyMed. Paclitaxel is approved to be used alone or with other drugs to treat: AIDS-related Kaposi sarcoma. Breast cancer. Non-small cell lung cancer. Ovarian cancer. Paclitaxel is also being studied in the treatment of other types of cancer.
What is the generic name for paclitaxel?
Abstract Taxol (generic name paclitaxel) is a microtubule-stabilizing drug that is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of ovarian, breast, and lung cancer, as well as Kaposi's sarcoma.
Is paclitaxel a concentration-dependent drug?
Like all drugs, paclitaxel exhibits concentration-dependent effects. It is not surprising that the rapid, dramatic effects of higher paclitaxel concentrations on mitosis and cell death were originally believed to be responsible for its efficacy in cancer therapy.

What types of cancer is paclitaxel prescribed for?
Paclitaxel is a chemotherapy drug. It is used to treat different cancers, including ovarian, breast, and non-small cell lung cancer. It may also be used to treat other cancers such as stomach cancer.
What diseases can be treated by paclitaxel?
It is one of the most widely used anticancer drugs, and has been used for the treatment of various cancers from metastatic breast cancer, advanced ovarian cancer, non-small-cell lung cancer, to Kaposi's sarcoma.
Is paclitaxel chemotherapy or radiation?
Paclitaxel and carboplatin are the names of a chemotherapy combination. It's also known as PC and CarboTaxo. It is a treatment for a number of different cancer types.
Is paclitaxel chemotherapy or immunotherapy?
Paclitaxel and carboplatin are chemotherapy drugs used as part of the usual treatment approach for this type of cancer. This study aims to assess if adding immunotherapy to these drugs is better or worse than the usual approach for treatment of this cancer.
Do you lose your hair with paclitaxel?
Hair loss. Paclitaxel causes hair loss. Most people will lose all their hair, including eyebrows, eyelashes and body hair. You may begin to lose your hair about two weeks after the first treatment, but it can happen earlier.
What are the common side effects of paclitaxel?
AdvertisementBlack or tarry stools.burning, numbness, tingling, or painful sensations.cough or hoarseness with fever or chills.feeling of warmth.fever or chills.redness of the face, neck, arms, and occasionally, upper chest.skin rash or itching.sore throat.More items...•
What is the difference between Taxol and paclitaxel?
Paclitaxel is a chemotherapy drug. It is a treatment for many different types of cancer. It is also called Taxol.
How effective is paclitaxel?
Dose-dense paclitaxel (paclitaxel given on a frequent or weekly schedule) has been shown to be a safe and effective treatment of metastatic breast cancer, inducing tumor responses in more than 50% of patients with metastatic breast cancer.
Is paclitaxel an immunotherapy?
Paclitaxel can affect the outcome of immunotherapy by various mechanisms of action on immune cells, and it also plays a role as an immunomodulator. However, the tumor immune process is complicated and cancer is difficult to cure.
Does paclitaxel cause weight gain?
Furthermore, paclitaxel-based chemotherapy has been associated with patient weight gain in studies of both breast and lung cancer. Although there has not been a systematic analysis to date, there is some evidence that carboplatin combined with paclitaxel can cause weight gain in ovarian cancer patients.
When does paclitaxel side effects start?
Fever, facial flushing, chills, shortness of breath, or hives after Paclitaxel is given (see allergic reaction). The majority of these reactions occur within the first 10 minutes of an infusion.
Why do you give paclitaxel before carboplatin?
Taxol (paclitaxel, Paxel) must be given before carboplatin because if carboplatin is given before Taxol, it stops Taxol from having an effect on cancer cells. This is called a scheduling interaction because when Taxol is given before carboplatin, there is little interaction and both agents work as intended.
What is the drug Taxol used for?
Taxol® (NSC 125973) Paclitaxel, the most well-known natural-source cancer drug in the United States, is derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree (Taxus brevifolia) and is used in the treatment of breast, lung, and ovarian cancer, as well as Kaposi's sarcoma.
Why is paclitaxel given before cisplatin?
One well-known example of this is administration of cisplatin and paclitaxel (Taxol); when cisplatin is given before paclitaxel, patients experience increased neutropenia. This effect is reduced when paclitaxel is administered first (without reducing the efficacy of the regimen).
Why do you give paclitaxel before carboplatin?
Taxol (paclitaxel, Paxel) must be given before carboplatin because if carboplatin is given before Taxol, it stops Taxol from having an effect on cancer cells. This is called a scheduling interaction because when Taxol is given before carboplatin, there is little interaction and both agents work as intended.
What is the difference between docetaxel and paclitaxel?
One major difference between Taxol (paclitaxel) and Taxotere (docetaxel) is the solution in which these two chemicals are dissolved for infusion into the body. Taxol is dissolved in polyoxyethylated castor oil and alcohol, while Taxotere is dissolved in polysorbate 80 and alcohol.
What is paclitaxel used for?
Paclitaxel is a chemotherapy drug. It is a treatment for many different types of cancer. It is also called Taxol.
How long does it take to get paclitaxel?
You might have it on its own or with other chemotherapy drugs. You have paclitaxel as a drip into your bloodstream (intravenously). Each treatment takes either 1 hour, 3 hours or 24 hours.
What do they check before and during a chemo treatment?
You have blood tests before and during your treatment. They check your levels of blood cells and other substances in the blood. They also check how well your liver and kidneys are working.
Why do you give medication before treatment?
You will usually be given medication just before treatment to prevent or reduce risk of an allergic reaction.
When was Taxol transitioned to Paclitaxel?
Congressional hearings were held in 1991 and 1993 regarding the transition of taxol to Taxol and paclitaxel (Table 1). The hearings questioned granting BMS a monopoly on a natural resource, as well as the higher price that was charged for drugs, like Taxol, that were identified and developed with federal funding rather than private money. The subcommittee staff concluded that the agreements between NCI and BMS were “not sufficient to fully protect the public interest” (United States Congress, House Committee on Small Business, Subcommittee on Regulation, Business Opportunities, and Energy, 1992). However, the agreements were not substantively altered. Taxol is the most profitable chemotherapy drug in history, and the only drug in clinical use identified by the plant screening program (Walsh and Goodman, 1999, 2002a, b).
What is the name of the plant that is used to identify anticancer compounds?
Between 1960 and 1981, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) collaborated on a plant screening program that collected and tested 115,000 extracts from 15,000 species of plants to identify naturally occurring compounds with anticancer activity. Samples from a single Pacific yew tree, Taxus brevifolia, were obtained by USDA botanist Arthur Barclay on the last day of his expedition in 1962. After his return, crude extracts from bark, twigs, needles, and fruit were tested, and bark extract was found to be cytotoxic. Mansukh Wani and Monroe Wall, working under contract with the NCI at the Research Triangle Institute (Research Triangle Park, NC), received T. brevifoliasamples in 1964. By 1967, they had isolated and identified the active ingredient from the bark of T. brevifoliaand named it taxol, based on its species of origin and the presence of hydroxyl groups (Perdue and Hartwell, 1969; Wall and Wani, 1995). In 1971, they published the structure of taxol (Wani et al., 1971), and it entered the NCI drug development program (Table 1).
Does Paclitaxel kill tumor cells?
Clinically relevant concentrations of paclitaxel kill tumor cells by inducing multipolar divisions. Cells entering mitosis in the presence of concentrations of paclitaxel equivalent to those in human breast tumors form abnormal spindles that contain additional spindle poles. Rather than mounting a long-term mitotic arrest, these cells enter anaphase and divide their chromosomes in multiple directions. However, a portion of the cytokinetic furrows often fail, and two or three daughter cells are usually produced. Chromosome segregation is randomized due to multipolar division followed by partial cytokinesis failure. The resultant daughter cells are aneuploid, and a portion of these die (red X), presumably due to loss of one or more essential chromosomes.
Is mitotic arrest necessary for tumor shrinkage?
However, contrary to expectations based on cell culture data, mitotic arrest was neither necessary nor sufficient for tumor shrinkage in response to paclitaxel (Zasadil et al., 2014).
Does Paclitaxel cause cell death?
Mechanistically, it is unclear how paclitaxel might enact cell death in interphase without having affected a prior mitosis. It has been hypothesized that paclitaxel may interfere with cell signaling, trafficking, and microtubule-mediated transport (Herbst and Khuri, 2003; Komlodi-Pasztor et al., 2011). However, in cell culture, clinically relevant levels of paclitaxel do not cause death in interphase cells that have not previously undergone mitosis in the context of drug (Janssen et al., 2013; Zasadil et al., 2014). Of interest, in tumor models observed using intravital microscopy, the mitotic index after treatment with doses of paclitaxel expected to cause mitotic arrest was quite low (Orth et al., 2011; Janssen et al., 2013), leading to the suggestion that the microenvironment allows paclitaxel to exhibit interphase effects not observed in culture. However, no clear cytotoxic mechanism has yet emerged.
Is Paclitaxel used for mitosis?
Paclitaxel treatment reduces the tension on kinetochores that maintain bipolar attachment (Waters et al., 1998), and is a useful tool both for arresting cells in mitosis and for dissecting the contributions of tension versus attachment in satisfying the mitotic checkpoint (Maresca and Salmon, 2010).
Does paclitaxel help with microtubules?
In 1977, the NCI sent samples of paclitaxel (still referred to as taxol at that point) to Susan Horwitz at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (New York, NY). In 1979, she reported that paclitaxel promotes the assembly of microtubules—polymers composed of repeating subunits of α- and β-tubulin heterodimers. Paclitaxel reduces the critical concentration of purified tubulin subunits necessary for polymerization into microtubules in vitro and increases the percentage of tubulin subunits that assemble. Furthermore, microtubules polymerized in the presence of paclitaxel are protected from the disassembly normally induced by cold or calcium treatment (Schiff et al., 1979). These effects were in stark contrast to previously identified microtubule poisons, including colchicine and vinca alkaloids, which prevent microtubule polymerization (Malawista and Bensch, 1967; Bensch and Malawista, 1968; De Brabander et al., 1981).
How is taxol injected?
Taxol is injected into a vein through an IV. A healthcare provider will give you this injection. You may be given other medications to prevent an allergic reaction while you are receiving paclitaxel.
What other drugs will affect Taxol?
Many drugs can interact with paclitaxel. Not all possible interactions are listed here. Tell your doctor about all your medications and any you start or stop using during treatment with Taxol, especially:
What is Taxol?
Taxol ( paclitaxel) is a cancer medication that interferes with the growth and spread of cancer cells in the body.
Why is taxol given before carboplatin?
Taxol (paclitaxel, Paxel) must be given before carboplatin because if carboplatin is given before Taxol, it stops Taxol from having an effect on cancer cells. This is called a scheduling interaction because when Taxol is given before carboplatin, there is little interaction and both agents work as intended. Continue reading
What are the symptoms of taxol injection?
Tell your caregivers if you feel any burning, pain, or swelling around the IV needle when Taxol is injected.
What to tell your doctor before taking taxol?
Before you receive Taxol, tell your doctor if you have liver disease, heart disease, or a severely weak immune system. Taxol can lower blood cells that help your body fight infections.
What happens if you are allergic to taxol?
Get emergency medical help if you have signs of an allergic reaction to Taxol: hives; difficult breathing; feeling like you might pass out; swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat.
Why is chemotherapy better than single drugs?
Chemotherapy is often given as a combination of drugs. Combinations usually work better than single drugs because different drugs kill cancer cells in different ways. Each of the drugs in this combination is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat cancer or conditions related to cancer.
What is carboplatin used for?
CARBOPLATIN-TAXOL is used to treat: Non-small cell lung cancer that has spread. Ovarian cancer. This combination may also be used with other drugs or treatments or to treat other types of cancer.
