Page 337 "My God, I thought, this man's blood was so toxic from medicine, how could he hope to live from the cure?"

From page 337 of the book:   Amid the disarray of glasses were drug vials, some empty, some still with pills in them. I read the labels and afterward identified them with Dr. Fanon's help. There were little bottles of demerol, to squelch his pain; diethylstilbestrol, an estrogen agent, to combat the production of testosterone; fluorouracil, an antimetabolite that directly fought the cancer; as well as vincristine, a mitotic inhibitor, which blocked the DNA assemblage within the cancerous cells. My God, I thought, this man's blood was so toxic from medicine, how could he hope to live from the cure? Another cytotoxic drug huddled in the background: medroxyprogesterone acetate. It was to act as an assassin of the cancer. A large bottle of vitamin C stood next to the vincristine.

The antimetabolite Flucytosine was originally developed in the 1950's as a potential antineoplastic agent. Although ineffective against tumors it was later found to have antifungal activity. This small molecule is transported into susceptible fungal cells by a specific enzyme cytosine permease and converted in the cytoplasm by cytosine deaminase to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU)- a pyrimidine anti-metabolite used as chemotherapy for many types of colorectal cancer.

An antimetabolite drip (chemotherapy)

A dividing cancer cell

A comparison of cell division