Dacarbazine is an antineoplastic chemotherapy drug used in the treatment of various cancers, among them malignant melanoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, sarcoma, and islet cell carcinoma of the pancreas. Dacarbazine is a member of the class of alkylating agents, which destroy cancer cells by adding an alkyl group (CnH2n+1) to its DNA. Like many chemotherapy drugs, dacarbazine may have numerous serious side effects, because it interferes with normal cell growth as well as cancer cell growth.Dacarbazine is normally administered by intravenous infusion (IV) under the immediate supervision of a doctor or nurse. Dacarbazine is bioactivated in liver by demethylation to "MTIC" and then to diazomethane, which is an "alkylating agent". Dacarbazine is commonly used as a single agent in the treatment of metastatic melanoma, and as part of the ABVD chemotherapy regimen to treat Hodgkin lymphoma, and in the MAID regimen for sarcoma.
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