• Cancer · Oct 2004

    Review

    Potential role of molecularly targeted therapy in the management of advanced nonsmall cell lung carcinoma in the elderly.

    • Cesare Gridelli, Erminia Massarelli, Paolo Maione, Antonio Rossi, Roy S Herbst, Amir Onn, and Fortunato Ciardiello.
    • Division of Medical Oncology, San Giuseppe Moscati Hospital, Avellino, Italy. cgridelli@libero.it
    • Cancer. 2004 Oct 15; 101 (8): 1733-44.

    BackgroundMore than 50% of all lung carcinoma cases are diagnosed in patients age > 65 years, and approximately 30% are diagnosed in patients age > 70 years. Elderly patients do not tolerate chemotherapy as well as their younger counterparts do, primarily because of the increased prevalence of comorbid conditions and organ failure. Thus, at present, the majority of elderly patients with malignant disease do not receive aggressive chemotherapy. For such elderly patients, alternatives to conventional chemotherapy, such as novel molecularly targeted therapy regimens, are of interest.MethodsThe current review summarizes contemporary approaches to and recent advances in the treatment of elderly patients with nonsmall cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) and offers perspectives on the future of molecularly targeted therapy in this population. Inhibitors of epidermal growth factor receptor, vascular endothelial growth factor, and cyclooxygenase-2 are discussed in the current report, with such inhibitors being, in our opinion, among the best candidates for clinical development in the setting of interest.ResultsNovel biologic agents with putative activity against advanced NSCLC are at various stages of clinical development. Some of these agents have yielded benefits in terms of disease-related symptom reduction, quality of life, and survival. For elderly patients, the potential advantages of such agents include improved tolerability compared with conventional chemotherapy. This feature also makes these novel agents attractive alternatives for younger patients who cannot tolerate or are reluctant to receive conventional chemotherapy.ConclusionsCurrent studies are investigating the safety and efficacy of these novel biologic agents administered alone, in combination with other noncytotoxic agents, and in combination with conventional chemotherapy. These studies will help elucidate the role of targeted therapy in the management of elderly patients with advanced NSCLC.

      Pubmed     Free full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…