Standard chemotherapy with gemcitabine and cisplatin in advanced urothelial cancer of the bladder results in median overall survival of 14 months (1).
Triplet chemotherapy regimens or high-dose chemotherapy failed to improve OS (2-4). The success of targeted therapies in some tumor entities as renal cell cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma or breast cancer led to studies in almost all other tumor entities. Based on the fact that these novel agents bind to specific receptors it seemed rationale to choose a target overexpressing its specific receptor in the tumor to be treated. In urothelial cancer the vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR), epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and Her-2/neu , a transmembrane tyrosine-kinase growth factor receptor, are known to be overexpressed in a substantial amount (5-9).
Written by:
Krege S, Rexer H, Vom Dorp F, de Geeter P, Klotz T, Retz M, Heidenreich A, Kühn M, Kamradt J, Feyerabend S, Wülfing C, Zastrow S, Albers P, Hakenberg O, Roigas J, Fenner M, Heinzer H, Schrader M. Are you the author?
Dpt. of Urology, Alexianer Hospital Maria Hilf GmbH, Krefeld, Germany.
Reference: BJU Int. 2013 Sep 5. Epub ahead of print.
doi: 10.1111/bju.12437
PubMed Abstract
PMID: 24053564
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