Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0023418 (leukemia)
 93,477 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Survival for patients with pancreatic cancer remains abysmal. Standard treatment for resected and locally advanced disease usually consists of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU, either bolus or continuous infusion) and external beam radiation. However, recent studies have shown the role of gemcitabine either used alone or incorporated with 5-FU and external beam radiation in this setting. Gemcitabine and erlotinib (Tarceva) are currently the only standard chemotherapeutic agents approved by FDA for the treatment of advanced pancreatic cancer. Combination chemotherapy trials incorporating gemcitabine with other agents such as 5-FU, oxaliplatin, or capecitabine generally show improved outcomes in objective response rates but with little or no improvement in survival in phase III trials. In this article, the author summarizes the key studies in pancreatic cancer presented at the 2007 Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium (Orlando, FL, USA; January, 2007). The studies discussed here include preliminary results of the Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB) phase III trial of gemcitabine plus bevacizumab and activity of other targeted agents including sorafenib, cetuximab, retrospective and population-based studies evaluating the role of chemo-radiotherapy and radiotherapy, an analysis of 3,306 patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database evaluating the predictive role of lymph nodes in survival following pancreatectomy and the assessment of novel agents, such as Genexol-PM and S-1.
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PMID:Pancreatic cancer: are we moving forward yet? Highlights from the Gastrointestinal Cancers Symposium. Orlando, FL, USA. January 20th, 2007. 1735 39

Tyrosine kinases (TKs) are attractive targets for cancer therapy, as quite often their abnormal signaling has been linked with tumor development and growth. Constitutive activated TKs stimulate multiple signaling pathways responsible for DNA repair, apoptosis, and cell proliferation. During the last few years, thorough analysis of the mechanism underlying tyrosine kinase's activity led to novel cancer therapy using TKs blockers. These drugs are remarkably effective in the treatment of various human tumors including head and neck, gastric, prostate and breast cancer and leukemias. The most successful example of kinase blockers is Imatinib (Imatinib mesylate, Gleevec, STI571), the inhibitor of Bcr/Abl oncoprotein, which has become a first-line therapy for chronic myelogenous leukemia. The introduction of STI571 for the treatment of leukemia in clinical oncology has had a dramatic impact on how this disease is currently managed. Others kinase inhibitors used recently in cancer therapy include Dasatinib (BMS-354825) specific for ABL non-receptor cytoplasmic kinase, Gefitinib (Iressa), Erlotinib (OSI-774, Tarceva) and Sunitinib (SU 11248, Sutent) specific for VEGF receptor kinase, AMN107 (Nilotinib) and INNO-406 (NS-187) specific for c-KIT kinase. The following TK blockers for treatment of various human tumors are in clinical development: Lapatinib (Lapatinib ditosylate, Tykerb, GW-572016), Canertinib (CI-1033), Zactima (ZD6474), Vatalanib (PTK787/ZK 222584), Sorafenib (Bay 43-9006, Nexavar), and Leflunomide (SU101, Arava). Herein, we discuss the chemistry, biological activity and clinical potential of new drugs with tyrosine kinase blockers for cancer treatment.
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PMID:Tyrosine kinase blockers: new hope for successful cancer therapy. 1914 83