Breast cancer is the most common malignant disease and among the most frequent causes of cancer mortality in females worldwide. Metastatic breast cancer (MBC) is conventionally considered to be incurable. In first-line treatment of HER-2 positive MBC, randomized trials have demonstrated that trastuzumab when combined with chemotherapy significantly improves progression free survival and overall...

Standard systemic chemotherapy has improved the outcome of patients with advanced colorectal rectal cancer (CRC) [1-3], but the disease is still incurable in the majority of patients. Recently, the development of anti-Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor (EGFR) antibody, cetuximab or panitumumab, have provided a new treatment option [4]. Several metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) trials have demon...

OBJECTIVES Advanced gastric cancer (AGC) patients have a poor prognosis. The best benefit of chemotherapy is usually achieved by first line setting. Very few studies have compared combination regimens. This study was designed to compare two combination regimens. METHODS Patients with advanced gastric cancer receiving first line chemotherapy were retrospectively collected, and divided into two...

Pemetrexed, a new multitarget antifolate antineoplastic agent, has significantly improved the overall survival in nonsquamous non-small-cell lung cancer patients. Presently, pemetrexed is recommended for first line treatment in combination with platinum derivatives, for second line treatment as a single agent and, more recently, as maintenance treatment after first line chemotherapy. In this ar...

Bevacizumab (Avastin, Genentech) is a potent inhibitor of vascular endothelial growth factor A that has demonstrated modest antitumor activity across a broad range of malignancies when combined with chemotherapy. In colorectal cancer, bevacizumab in combination with chemotherapy is a standard of care for first-line therapy, and is used as second-line therapy in both bevacizumab-naive patients a...

PURPOSE The efficacy of targeted agents (TAs) in the treatment of elderly patients with advanced non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) remains controversial. We aimed to assess the efficacy of TAs in the treatment of advanced NSCLC in this setting. MATERIALS AND METHODS Relevant trials were identified by searching electronic databases and conference meetings. Prospective randomized controlled tr...

Background. Efficacy of adding bevacizumab in first-line chemotherapy of metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) has been controversial. The aim of this study is to gather current data to analyze efficacy of adding bevacizumab to the most used combination first-line chemotherapy in mCRC, based on the 2012 meta-analysis reported by Macedo et al.  Methods. Medline, EMBASE and Cochrane library, meetin...

Pemetrexed is an antifolate agent that is regarded as an alternative second-line chemotherapy against advanced or metastatic urothelial carcinoma (UC). However, there is limited information on pemetrexed in a third-line setting. We report a case of metastatic UC treated with pemetrexed as third-line chemotherapy following gemcitabine and cisplatin (GC) and gemcitabine and docetaxel (GD) therapi...

PURPOSE The current research was conducted to investigate the efficacy and safety of pemetrexed given continuously as a basement agent for first-, second- to third line chemotherapy of patients with metastatic lung adenocarcinoma. PATIENTS AND METHODS Patients with metastatic lung adenocarcinoma who were diagnosed in Jiangsu Cancer Hospital and Research Insitute, were enrolled. All received p...

PURPOSE The aims of this study are to find out whether the sequence of chemotherapeutic regimens including second- and third-line taxane and irinotecan influences the survival of patients with unresectable gastric carcinoma and to identify clinical characteristics of patients with improved response. MATERIALS AND METHODS Fifty gastric carcinoma patients who were treated by third-line sequenti...