Factors Modifying the Activity and Toxicity of Anticancer Agents

It is a common experience in cancer chemotherapy, as in practically every other field of therapeutics, that the response to treatment with antineoplastic agents quite frequently varies between individuals. Variability in therapeutic effectiveness can depend on the tumor itself and on the host; our knowledge of both these aspects is still quite limited, especially at the clinical level. In this paper we concentrate mainly on the host’s contribution to variability, using experimental models to study factors which, at different levels, may decisively influence the chemotherapeutic efficacy and toxicity of anticancer agents.