Chemo- and Immunopharmacology: The Reality and the Horizons of Cancer Treatment

Abstract

Pharmacology has become an important ingredient in the design of studies dealing with anticancer chemotherapy. It is now exceptional to encounter anticancer drugs where pharmacologic studies lag considerably behind clinical evaluation. Major reasons for the development include:

• 1) The introduction of more varied classes of compounds with less clear dose-limiting end points other than melosuppression;

• 2) The exploitation of pharmacologic properties in designing “second generation” anticancer drugs or analogues;

• 3) Increasing knowledge of biochemical pathways and “modulation” of selectivity of certain drugs, and

• 4) The increasing sophistication in administering chemotherapy by special techniques requiring pharmacologic monitoring. In the contributions to this volume, there are many examples of each of these reasons for introducing pharmacology pari passu with anticancer chemotherapy trials.