Current Pharmacogenomics - Volume 5, Issue 3, 2007

The chemotherapeutic agent 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) remains the drug of choice for the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer, despite the fact that poor patient response to the drug due to acquired or inherent drug resistance is a major clinical problem. To be able to predict an individual patient's response to 5-FU would facilitate the design of chemotherapeutic regimens tailored according to the individual patient and tum Read More

Pharmacogenomic research into smoking behaviour and smoking cessation holds promise for understanding why people smoke and how we can better help people to quit. As smoking prevalence declines in the United States and Western Europe through social and clinical action, average level of tobacco and nicotine dependence amongst smokers may increase. The place of the pharmacogenomic contribution to understanding Read More

Many lines of evidence demonstrate that certain dietary phytochemicals have cancer chemopreventive effects. These dietary phytochemicals or chemo-preventive agents can suppress or block carcinogenesis by (1) enhancing the biotransformation enzymatic activities for efficient elimination of carcinogens or reactive oxidative or nitrosative species (ROS/RNS); (2) suppressing the growth/inflammatory signaling pathways invol Read More

The treatment of Chronic Myelogenous Leukaemia (CML) has been revolutionized by the introduction of Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitors (TKIs) and represents a new paradigm for the treatment of cancer. Imatinib Mesylate (IM) specifically targets limited numbers of tyrosine kinases (BCR-ABL, PDGFRα, PDGFRβ, C-ABL, c-fms and c-Kit), which explains its specific anti-tumoural efficacy and limited toxicity. In CML, the pivotal phas Read More

Osteoporosis is a prevalent disease, particularly among postmenopausal women, characterized by low bone mass and increased skeletal fragility. It is a complex disease resulting from the interaction of hereditary and environmental factors. Many investigators have studied the genetic influence on bone mass. Although the results have been controversial and not reproduced consistently, some genes appear to be likely candidate Read More

Despite the availabilty of active chemotherapy combinations and novel targeted agents, the prognosis in advanced non-small cell cancer (NSCLC) remains poor. Similarly, although the efficacy of adjuvant chemotherpy has recently been established, the risk of disease recurrence after surgery for early stage disease remains high. Some patients enjoy sustained benefit from currently available drugs, but overall results in unselec Read More

Recent expansion of pharmacotherapy of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) reflects an increasing understanding of the mechanisms involved in its pathogenesis. Individual variation in response to drugs is a major problem in clinical practice and is associated with various host factors, including sex, age, diet, alcohol consumption, smoking habits and genetic background. The study of the genetic determinants influencing interindi Read More