Recently there have been significant advances in rational drug design for the treatment of breast cancer, especially in the area of targeted drug therapy. These include drugs which target the HER2 receptor and angiogenesis and the novel class of drug the PARP inhibitors. Some of these agents, for example, trastuzumab used in the treatment of HER2 positive breast cancer are already established a...

Taxanes are amongst the most promising antitumor agents available at hand today, of increasing importance in Asia given that cancer is now one of the major public health problems which needs to be dealt urgently for the benefit of affected patients. Several ongoing experimental and clinical trials have supported the fact that even with their side effects and poor solubilities, taxanes are still...

Despite positive results in large scale chemoprevention trials, many physicians are unaware of the potential cancer preventive properties of drugs in common usage. The antioestrogen tamoxifen and the selective cyclo-oxygenase-2 inhibitor celecoxib have been licensed in the USA for the chemoprevention of breast and colorectal cancers respectively in selected high risk individuals. Similarly, fol...

Despite current developments in therapeutics focusing on biotechnologically-oriented species, the unflagging utility of small molecules or peptides in medicine is still producing strong results. In 2014 for example, of the 41 new medicines authorized for sale, 33 belonged to the category of small molecules, while in 2013 they represented 24 of 27, according to the FDA. This can be explained as ...

In 1992, a pooled analysis of the risk of ovarian cancer was published by Whittemore et al. (1). It received a great deal of attention because of its size and many strengths. The study confirmed most of the previously identified risk factors for ovarian cancer, but, in addition, a considerably increased risk of ovarian cancer was observed among infertile women who had used fertility drugs (1). ...