Search

Despite the development of standard therapies, including surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, survival rates for head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) have not changed significantly over the past three decades. Complete recovery is achieved in <50% of patients. The treatment of advanced HNSCC frequently requires multimodality therapy and involves significant toxicity. The promising, novel treatment option for patients with HNSCC is molecular-targeted therapies. The best known targeted therapies include: Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibodies (cetuximab, panitumumab, zalutumumab and nimotuzumab), EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitors (gefitinib, erlotinib, lapatinib, afatinib and dacomitinib), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inhibitor (bevacizumab) or vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (VEGFR) inhibitors (sorafenib, sunitinib and vandetanib) and inhibitors of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase/serine/threonine-specific protein kinase/mammalian target of rapamycin. There are also various inhibitors of other pathways and targets, which are promising and require evaluation in further studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Glioblastoma multiforme is the most common brain malignan-cy in adults. It is also highly aggressive and characterized by very poor prognosis. Surgical resection of the tumor remains the basic treatment that significantly improves survival. Moreover, adjuvant chemoradiotherapy is the standard-of-care. Glioblastoma multiforme has a very complex genetic profile; various genetic abnormalities have been discovered in cells of this type of tumor. Despite growing interest in targeted therapies in oncology, no breakthrough offering successful treatment of glioblastoma multiforme has occurred. Owing to the tumor's rich vasculature, antiangiogentic the-rapies seem promising. An association between carcinogene-sis and tumor vasculature was observed in 1970s. At present, the only FDA-approved drug targeting antiogenesis-stimula-ting factor is bevacizumab. In recent years, more and more new antiangiogenic therapies have been investigated in both monotherapy and combined treatment of glioblastoma mul-tiforme with different success rates. This article presents an overview of the most explored therapies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]