Oncological investigations with

Mrs KT, a 52-year-old hospital cleaner, is admitted as an inpatient to your oncology ward with symptoms from advanced colon cancer. Her GP referred her to the hospital oncology team three weeks ago for investigations (including colonoscopy and subsequent biopsy of a colonic mass, as well as whole body computerised tomography (CT) scan) that revealed stage IV metastatic colon cancer. Her consultant oncologist has now admitted her for FOLFOX systemic cytotoxic chemotherapy treatment. 

Kinases are also under investigation for indications other than oncology. Will resistance emerge Much of the evolutionary pressure to develop resistance arises from the inhibition of key, life-sustaining processes by kinases inhibited for oncology indications. With other uses, the kinase inhibitor will be used to attenuate an over-expressing or over-active kinase, while leaving normal kinase function uninhibited. This may reduce the evolutionary pressure to develop resistant strains substantially. 

Despite this background there is a small band of kinase inhibitors currently undergoing human clinical evaluation outside the oncology franchise, with several in late Phase status (II III). Therapeutic areas being investigated include inflammation, autoimmune, respiratory, cardiovascular, pain, trans-... 

A widely used molecular probe in PET imaging is the glucose mimic 2-deoxy-[ F]fluoro-D-deoxyglucose (FDG), which has been snccessfiilly employed in neurological, cardiovascular and oncology investigations. This probe has a relatively long half-life of 109 min, which makes its prodnction/utilization in hospitals more practical than probes based on other radionnclides with shorter half-lives. 

In the search for an optimal lead compound, not only activity on the desired target but also activity on other targets should be considered. Sometimes, multi-protein-targeting is desired, e.g., for multi-kinase inhibitors in the oncology field. However, also activity on side effect-related targets - so-called antitargets -is to be investigated. Compounds with no or very low affinity to proteins related to cardiovascular, cytotoxic, or metabolic effects are more likely to pass... 

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