Drug therapy of cancer

Posted by rob on March 5, 2011 under Uncategorized | Comments are off for this article

Abstract  Cancer chemotherapy was introduced at the same time as antibacterial chemotherapy but has not been nearly such a success.
However, there is a growing optimism in oncology today due to the introduction of several more or less target-specific drugs
as complements to the conventional cytotoxic drugs introduced half a century ago. The success in the treatment of chronic
myelogenous leukemia by imatinib, inhibiting the bcr-abl-activated tyrosine kinase and thereby interrupting the signal transduction
pathways that lead to leukemic transformation with impressive survival benefit, has paved the way for this new optimism. Another
success story is the introduction of trastuzumab in breast cancers overexpressing the HER-2 receptor. In contrast, there has
been little progres…
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