Promising new agents in oncologic treatment

Over the past year, several new anticancer agents have entered the clinic and are undergoing further phase II clinical development at the time of this writing. There has been a sudden influx of rationally designed drugs with novel therapeutic effects ranging from direct cellular toxicity to inhibition of blood vessel formation and of metastases. This review focuses only on cytotoxic drugs that have been in clinical development for the past 5 years; however, only recently have these drugs found a 'niche' in the clinic. These drugs include novel taxanes (eg, docetaxel), the camptothecin analogues (eg, irinotecan [CPT-11]), the newer generation of thymidylate synthase inhibitors (eg, raltitrexed [ZD 1694, Tomudex]), nocleoside analogues (eg, gemcitabine), and oral alternatives to intravenous 5-fluorouracil. Most of these agents have completed or have entered phase II or III testing, and the results of these trials will be available to us over the next few years.