title: [Targeted therapy: what does it mean? A physician point of view].
abstract: Over the past few years, the development of novel antitumoral strategies considered as a more appropriate molecularly drug target has replaced the more empiric screening way of research for new cytotoxic drugs. The better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying carcinogenesis has provided rapidly this emerging development of a huge patterns of targeted drugs that can inhibit specifically cancer pathways and key molecules in tumor cells or environment, implicated in tumor growth, progression, apoptosis, angiogenesis and metastases. Some of these new targeted agents have already demonstrated their significant efficacy in cancer patients and recently been approved in US and Europe. The recent technological advances in pharmacogenomics and proteomics have led to improve the identification of biomarkers predictive of response and thereby to identify the patients that would be more likely to respond from such a therapy. However, even though some of these new compounds have shown high progress and have become new standards of care and cure for cancer patients, failure rates are still common especially in oncology and deserve a greater attention to the type of these new molecular target, diagnostic criteria to tailor patient and to the different surrogate markers that can be used as outcome measures.
authors.affiliation: Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Département d'Oncologie Médicale, GH Pitié-Salpêtrière, 47 boulevard de l'Hôpital, 75013 Paris.
authors.forename: Jean-Philippe
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Spano
mesh_terms: D000920:Antibody-Dependent Cell Cytotoxicity / Q000502:physiology; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000378:metabolism; D049109:Cell Proliferation / Q000187:drug effects; D066246:ErbB Receptors / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D009363:Neoplasm Proteins / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors* / Q000378:metabolism; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000378:metabolism; D047428:Protein Kinase Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D019009:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit / Q000378:metabolism; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A / Q000037:antagonists & inhibitors / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D066246:ErbB Receptors; D009363:Neoplasm Proteins; D047428:Protein Kinase Inhibitors; D019009:Proto-Oncogene Proteins c-kit; D018719:Erb-b2 Receptor Tyrosine Kinases; D042461:Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor A