title: Quinazoline derivatives as potential anticancer agents: a patent review (2007 - 2010).
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Due to the increase in knowledge about cancer pathways, there is a growing interest in finding novel potential drugs. Quinazoline is one of the most widespread scaffolds amongst bioactive compounds. A number of patents and papers appear in the literature regarding the discovery and development of novel promising quinazoline compounds for cancer chemotherapy. Although there is a progressive decrease in the number of patents filed, there is an increasing number of biochemical targets for quinazoline compounds.
  
  
  METHODS
  This paper provides a comprehensive review of the quinazolines patented in 2007 - 2010 as potential anticancer agents. Information from articles published in international peer-reviewed journals was also included, to give a more exhaustive overview.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  From about 1995 to 2006, the anticancer quinazolines panorama has been dominated by the 4-anilinoquinazolines as tyrosine kinase inhibitors. The extensive researches conducted in this period could have caused the progressive reduction in the ability to file novel patents as shown in the 2007 - 2010 period. However, the growing knowledge of cancer-related pathways has recently highlighted some novel potential targets for therapy, with quinazolines receiving increasing attention. This is well demonstrated by the number of different targets of the patents considered in this review. The structural heterogeneity in the patented compounds makes it difficult to derive general pharmacophores and make comparisons among claimed compounds. On the other hand, the identification of multi-target compounds seems a reliable goal. Thus, it is reasonable that quinazoline compounds will be studied and developed for multi-target therapies.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze Farmaceutiche, Università degli Studi di Padova, via Marzolo 5, 35131 Padova, Italy. giovanni.marzaro@unipd.it
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Marzaro
authors.forename: Adriano
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Guiotto
authors.forename: Adriana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chilin
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000970:Antineoplastic Agents / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*; D016503:Drug Delivery Systems; D015195:Drug Design; D055808:Drug Discovery / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000473:pathology; D010330:Patents as Topic; D047428:Protein Kinase Inhibitors / Q000494:pharmacology; D011799:Quinazolines / Q000737:chemistry / Q000494:pharmacology*
chemical_list: D000970:Antineoplastic Agents; D047428:Protein Kinase Inhibitors; D011799:Quinazolines