Fragmento

Introduction Colorectal cancer remains the second most common cause of cancer death in the United States and the Western world. Despite advances in early detection, surgery, and adjuvant therapy, there will be 50,000 deaths this year in the United States. The treatment of advanced colorectal cancer has been revolutionized over the past 15 years with improved cytotoxic therapies such as infusional fluorouracil (5-FU), irinotecan, and oxaliplatin, but the median survival remains less than 2 years in large trials and 5-year survival uncommon. The initial promise of using so-called targeted therapy in cancer was that by only inhibiting the growth of abnormal cells, it would be more effective than standard chemotherapy with minimal additional toxicity. Unfortunately, outside of the use of imatinib (Gleevec) in chronic myelogenous leukemia and gastrointestinal stromal tumors and perhaps trastuzumab (Herceptin) in HER2/ neu-positive breast cancer, the reality has been much more limited-perhaps driven by the genetic heterogeneity seen in major malignancies and the overlap of targets with normal cells.

Palabras clave: .

2008-09-12   |   1,091 visitas   |   Evalua este artículo 0 valoraciones

Vol. 73 Núm.1. Agosto 2008 Pags. 171-173. Rev Gastroenterol Mex 2008; 73(Supl. 1)