"Targeted" Cancer Therapies

This story will be an ongoing one. A revolution is now taking place in cancer therapy. For most of the last 30 years, non-surgical cancer therapy has consisted of chemotherapy and radiation. There have been a few biological agents of late, but their roles have been limited, All of these therapies share one overriding characteristic; they are nonselective i.e. they kill the good cells along with the bad ones. This is the shotgun approach, better than nothing but leaving a lot to be desired. Now we are coming into the age of selective therapies; the concept is now the rifle rather than the old shotgun.

If any one therapy could be pointed to as the turning point it would be the recently approved drug Gleevec. This drug, which is indicated for the treatment of CML (Chronic Myeloid Leukemia) targets a specific abnormality found in the CML cell exclusively. "Normal Cells" are not affected. The results have been dramatic and you would not be exaggerating in calling this a miracle drug. Equally good results were obtained in patients with a certain type of stomach cancer Gastrointestinal Stromal Tumor, using Gleevec.

Again, the hallmark of targeted therapies is the ability to hit "the target" (tumor cells) while sparing normal cells. You will be reading more about these agents in the future.

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November 01, 2001