RT Book, Section A1 Katzung, Bertram G. A1 Kruidering-Hall, Marieke A1 Tuan, Rupa Lalchandani A1 Vanderah, Todd W. A1 Trevor, Anthony J. SR Print(0) ID 1180558914 T1 Cancer Chemotherapy T2 Katzung & Trevor's Pharmacology: Examination & Board Review, 13e YR 2021 FD 2021 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9781260117127 LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1180558914 RD 2024/04/23 AB Cancer chemotherapy remains a challenging area of pharmacology. On the one hand, use of cytotoxic anticancer drugs produces high rates of cure of a few cancers, which, without chemotherapy, result in extremely high mortality rates (eg, acute lymphocytic leukemia in children, testicular cancer, and Hodgkin lymphoma). On the other hand, some types of cancer are minimally affected by currently available drugs. Furthermore, as a group, the cytotoxic anticancer drugs are more toxic than any other drug class and thus their benefit must be carefully weighed against their risks. Many of the available drugs are cytotoxic agents that act on all dividing cells, cancerous or normal. The ultimate goal in cancer chemotherapy is to use advances in cell biology to develop targeted therapies that selectively affect specific cancer cells. This area is one of the most rapidly expanding fields in drug development.