Chemotherapy agents and the induction of late lethal defects.

Radiation is now known to be capable of producing both lethal and non lethal lesions in a variety of mammalian cells which may not be expressed for several cell divisions after the initial insult. The mechanism by which such an effect occurs is unknown. Because of the possible implications for cancer treatment, if such an effect also occurred following chemotherapy exposure, cells were exposed to various cytotoxic chemotherapy agents with known …