Efficacy anticancer, improving

Administration of some anticancer drugs by continuous infusion has been shown to improve their therapeutic index through selective reduction of toxicity with retained or enhanced antitumor efficacy. 

Pei, J., Zhang, C., Gokhale, PC., Rahman, A., Dritschilo, A., Ahmad, I., and Kasid, U. (2004) Combination with liposome-entrapped, ends-modified raf anti-sense oligonucleotide (LErafAON) improves the anti-tumor efficacies of cis-platin, epirubicin, mitoxantrone, docetaxel, and gemcitabine. Anticancer Drugs 15, 243-253. 

The responses of these three cancer types were found to differ during clinical trials of MDR-1 inhibitors (123). For the first class, MDR-1 inhibition has had little effect on the efficacy of the cancer therapy. It appears that too many other transporters and drug resistance mechanisms are present in front-line defense organs such as kidney, liver, and intestine. For the second class, at least transiently improved responses to anticancer drugs have been seen with MDR-1 inhibitor cotherapy. However, a second relapse is seen as other transport... 

Efforts to promote medical applications of liposomes have permitted the development of several new drug formulations applicable to a broad range of therapeutics. One of the main areas of liposomes application is cancer therapy, A great number of scientists worldwide have focused their work on drug discovery or the improvement of the efficacy and reduction of the toxicity of known drugs. Two of the main problems in cancer chemotherapy are the toxicity of the known anticancer drugs and the multi drug resistance of certain cancer cells. 

Lumsden AJ, Codde JP, Gray BN, et al. 1992. Prevention of myelosuppression does not improve the therapeutic efficacy of chemo-immunotherapy. Anticancer Res 12 1725-1730. 

Paclitaxel (XVI X = C6H5, Y = CH3) is a well-known anticancer drug for the treatment of different kinds of metastatic tumors. Despite its success in the chemotherapy, there are demands to improve its efficacy as well as lower its toxicity. The QSAR of pacUtaxel derivatives suggest that the key modification at certain positions may result in the significant improvement of its activity. The cytotoxic activities of a series of paclitaxel derivatives (XVI) against... 

For centuries, plants have been a unique source of therapeutically significant alkaloids and they continue to be excellent sources of drugs. Furthermore, alkaloids of natural origin serve as a model for the semisynthesis or the synthesis of derivatives which have improved pharmacokinetic properties, a higher efficacy and/or less toxicity. One of the most recent examples is the isolation of the anticancer agent, called taxol, from the stem bark Of the Pacific yew tree Taxus brevifolia in 1971 by Wani and co-workers [1] and the development, a few years later, of docetaxel, a semisynthetic derivative obtained from 10-deacetyl-baccatin III [2]. 

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