Cancer is listed among the most deadly diseases in the twenty-first century. The prevalence of this ailment is mostly attributed to the changes in lifestyle in the modern day, as compared to the past. The lack of a cure for this disease has impacted the loss of a vast number of lives. ZL105, a new drug, is said to have the potential to cure cancer. Nonetheless, insufficient tests have been done to prove the truthfulness behind this claim. New cancer drugs should undergo extensive testing for the acquisition of accurate results with regards to the efficiency and safety of these medications when used in human treatment. Consequently, cancer patients would be provided with the most effective treatment.
Animal Models
Animal studies are focal in the determination of drug efficacy and safety. A vast number of medical achievements are contingent on animal testing. Animal models are the most effective when it comes to testing the effectiveness and safety of ZL105 in the treatment of cancer. According to Cekanova & Rathore (2014), animal models have a comparable body system to that of human beings, which is critical in the determination of the effectiveness of this new drug in cancer treatment. In addition, animal models are flexible, for instance, genes can be altered when it is indispensable so that the animal subjects can express human versions of particular genes and comparable genomes to those of humans. Consequently, this lets medications that interact with certain human proteins to interact in a test system that has similar properties in other models. Mice, for instance, are the best animal models to work with when it comes to testing the reliability and safety of new cancer drugs. Vandamme (2014) argue that mice are relatively small in size, easy to breed, and highly reliable where disease development is concerned.
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When new drugs are tested on such animals, the results obtained are highly applicable to human beings, which creates new knowledge on cancer and its potential treatments, as well as whether the procedures are productive in achieving what they are meant to. Nonetheless, animal models cannot be entirely relied upon since the results obtained from testing drugs on them have not always been applicable to mankind. For instance, scientists have determined the effectiveness of many medicines in curing cancer in mice, but none of these drugs have worked on human beings.
Determination of Safety and Drug Effectiveness
Prior to the introduction of new drugs to human beings, efficacy, toxicity, and lethality tests should be carried out to determine whether the drug will promote the attainment of the set healthcare goals. Using ZL105 in animals prior to its application in human beings allows scientists to decide if the drug will produce the desired result or not. In this case, the anticipated outcome would be the complete cure of cancer. Testing efficacy enables scientists to gauge the productivity and safety of the medication in actual human beings. As a result, drugs that are deemed ineffective are not administered to cancer patients.
Toxicity testing is also a mandatory procedure when new drugs that have the potential to treat human diseases are developed. Toxicity tests enable scientists to determine if the drug is possibly toxic to individuals, and to what extents. Through this test, poisonous compounds in the drugs under study are detected, based on their biological activity. Nonetheless, the major drawback of this test is that it fosters the detection of toxic elements, but it fails to make a proper identification of what these toxic compounds are (Rovida et al. 2015). Nevertheless, the detection of toxic constituents in the medication is used as a means of predicting its harmfulness to human beings based on the physicochemical properties of the compounds. The potential impacts of the toxic elements in the drugs are also recognized, fostering effective decision making on if the drugs should be used on human beings or not.
Animal models are handy for lethality testing. New drugs necessitate this kind of testing to gauge the doses that can cause death in the selected model species, before being applied to patients. The lethality of a particular drug is defined empirically in terms of the proportion of test subjects that have died at each dosage. Additionally, lethality testing enables scientists to establish the best doses that should be taken at a given period of time. As a result, when the drug is eventually administered to human beings, the required doses will be prescribed, to prevent any fatalities that could arise, as a result of taking the wrong prescriptions. The three tests are adequate for making a proper determination of whether ZL105 is a useful drug for cancer treatment or not.
Personal Thoughts on the Information that the Researcher Hopes to Gather
New drugs cannot just be introduced in the clinical setup without testing their efficacy, toxicity, and lethality. The three tests are very critical in ensuring that the drug will be productive in the attainment of the set medical objectives. The tests offer scientists valuable information with regards to the potential side effects of ZL105 in human patients suffering from cancer. Based on the toxic compounds detected in the drug and how adverse its side effects are, decisions are made regarding whether or not the drug should be employed in cancer treatment or if it will further deteriorate the health of the patients, and cause more harm than good (Rovida et al. 2015). Based on the collected information, decisions are made pertaining to the use of the medication in cancer patients.
Moreover, these tests would also provide vital information with regards to the dosage. Through the use of animal models, a determination of the most appropriate doses that should be given at certain stages of cancer, as well as the time frames in which these drugs should be taken are acquired. Testing allows scientists to know the various effects that occasion the administration of certain doses, as well as the precise doses that should be prescribed to cancer patients for the most favorable health outcomes. In addition, the amount of time that cancer patients should continue taking the drug would also be identified, which is a critical requirement in the administration of cancer medicine. This information is essential in the treatment of such an adverse disease such as cancer.
Most importantly, the tests would enable researchers to know the likely side effects that would occasion the use of the drug. Adverse side effects such as kidney failure and heart failure, among others, enable scientists to know that the medication would only decrease the quality of human life when used. Nonetheless, if the drug is determined to be free of any side effects or if the side effects are considered mild such as headaches and nausea, then the drug would be deemed safe for use. Testing prevents the introduction of medication that would inflict more harm on human life. The testing protocol should be used to test the efficacy, lethality, and toxicity of other drugs, cosmetics, as well as herbal medicines.
Conclusion
Cancer is one of the fatal diseases in the twentieth century. Its prevalence and aggressive tendencies have made the disease the core focus of the majority of the world’s health organizations. There is a dire need to find a cure for cancer to promote the quality of life in the global society. ZL105 is one of the drugs which are anticipated to cure this disease. Animal models should be employed to test the efficacy, toxicity, and lethality of this drug. The tests should be done carefully and extensively, for the most accurate results to be obtained. In so doing, the efficiency of this treatment in curing cancer would be determined.
References
Cekanova, M., & Rathore, K. (2014). Animal models and therapeutic molecular targets of cancer: utility and limitations. Drug design, development, and therapy , 8 , 1911.
Rovida, C., Asakura, S., Daneshian, M., Hofman-Huether, H., Leist, M., Meunier, L., & Zurlo, J. (2015). Toxicity testing in the 21st century beyond environmental chemicals. Altex , 32 (3), 171.
Vandamme, T. F. (2014). Use of rodents as models of human diseases. Journal of pharmacy & bioallied sciences , 6 (1), 2.
