Definition

1. Noun:
   • An antineoplastic drug: Lomustine is a chemotherapy medication used to treat certain types of cancer by inhibiting the growth of cancer cells.

Usage

• Lomustine is typically administered orally in capsule form.
• It is used in the treatment of specific cancers, most notably brain tumors (like glioblastoma) and Hodgkin's lymphoma.
• Treatment with lomustine is usually managed by an oncologist and involves specific dosing cycles due to its potential side effects.

Examples

• Noun:
  • The oncologist prescribed a cycle of lomustine for the patient's recurrent glioblastoma.
  • Lomustine is part of the chemotherapy regimen for some patients with Hodgkin's disease.

Advanced Usage

• "Lomustine therapy": Refers to a treatment plan that uses this specific drug.
  • The patient tolerated the initial phase of lomustine therapy well.
• "Lomustine resistance": Describes when cancer cells stop responding to the drug.
  • Research is ongoing to overcome lomustine resistance in glioblastoma.

Variants and Related Words

• CCNU: This is a common synonym and the original code name for lomustine.
  • The drug CCNU is chemically identical to lomustine.
• Alkylating agent: This is the class of chemotherapy drugs to which lomustine belongs.
  • As an alkylating agent, lomustine works by damaging the DNA of cancer cells.

Synonyms

• Chemotherapeutic agent: A general term for drugs used in chemotherapy.
• Antineoplastic: A substance that prevents, inhibits, or halts the development of a neoplasm (a tumor).

Related Terms (Note: These are not phrasal verbs or idioms, but key associated medical terms)

• Myelosuppression: A common and serious side effect of lomustine, involving decreased bone marrow activity.
  • Patients on lomustine require regular blood tests to monitor for myelosuppression.
• Nitrosourea: The specific chemical family of alkylating agents that includes lomustine.
  • Lomustine is a nitrosourea compound.

Noun

1. an antineoplastic drug often used to treat brain tumors or Hodgkin's disease