-
OncoTargets and Therapy
- About Dovepress
Open access peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals.
- Open Access
Dove Medical Press is now a member of the Open Access Initiative
- An Author's Guide
A guide to help authors get their paper published.
- Advocacy
Support Open Access and Dove Press
- Reprints
Promotional Article Monitoring - further details
- Favored Author Program
Real benefits for authors, including fast-track processing of papers.
Targeting cancers in the gastrointestinal tract: role of capecitabine
Review
(5867) Total Article Views
Authors: Muhammad Wasif Saif
Published Date March 2009 Volume 2009:2 Pages 29 - 41
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2147/OTT.S3469
Muhammad Wasif Saif
Yale Cancer Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA
Abstract: Capecitabine is currently the only novel, orally home-administered fluorouracil prodrug. It offers patients more freedom from hospital visits and less inconvenience and complications associated with infusion devices. The drug has been extensively studied in large clinical trials in many solid tumors, including breast cancer, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, and many others. Furthermore, the drug compares favorably with fluorouracil in patients with such cancers, with a safe toxicity profile, consisting mainly of gastrointestinal and dermatologic adverse effects. Whereas gastrointestinal events and hand-foot syndrome occur often with capecitabine, the tolerability profile is comparatively favorable. Prompt recognition of severe adverse effects is the key to successful management of capecitabine. Ongoing and future clinical trials will continue to examine, and likely expand, the role of capecitabine as a single agent and/or in combination with other anticancer agents for the treatment of gastrointestinal as well as other solid tumors, both in the advanced palliative and adjuvant settings. The author summarizes the current data on the role of capecitabine in the management of gastrointestinal cancers.
Keywords: 5-fluorouracil, capecitabine, chemotherapy, adjuvant, advanced, colon cancer, gastric cancer, hepatocellular cancer, pancreatic cancer, cholangiocarcinoma, rectal cancer, anal cancer
Post to:
Cannotea Citeulike Del.icio.us Facebook LinkedIn Twitter
Other articles by Dr Wasif Saif
Readers of this article also read:
- Have an opinion about one of our articles?
We encourage you to write a letter to the editor.
- The bradykinin B2 receptor induces multiple cellular responses leading to the proliferation of human renal carcinoma cell lines
- Epigenomics in cancer management
- Serous endometrial intraepithelial carcinoma: a case series and literature review
- Intercellular cancer collisions generate an ejected crystal comet tail effect with fractal interface embryoid body reassembly transformation