How does Xeloda work in the body?
How does Xeloda work in the body? The active substance in Xeloda, capecitabine, is a cytotoxic medicine (a medicine that kills rapidly dividing cells, such as cancer cells) that belongs to the group 'anti-metabolites'. Capecitabine is converted to the medicine fluorouracil in the body, but more is converted in tumour cells than in normal tissues. What is the mechanism of action for 5-FU? 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) can activate p53 by more than one mechanism: incorporation of fluorouridine triphosphate (FUTP) into RNA, incorporation of fluorodeoxyuridine triphosphate (FdUTP) into DNA and inhibition of thymidylate synthase (TS) by fluorodeoxyuridine monophosphate (FdUMP) with resultant DNA...