TY - JOUR
T1 - A history of cancer chemotherapy
AU - DeVita, Vincent T.
AU - Chu, Edward
N1 - Copyright:
Copyright 2009 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2008/11/1
Y1 - 2008/11/1
N2 - The use of chemotherapy to treat cancer began at the start of the 20th century with attempts to narrow the universe of chemicals that might affect the disease by developing methods to screen chemicals using transplantable tumors in rodents. It was, however, four World War II-related programs, and the effects of drugs that evolved from them, that provided the impetus to establish in 1955 the national drug development effort known as the Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center. The ability of combination chemotherapy to cure acute childhood leukemia and advanced Hodgkin's disease in the 1960s and early 1970s overcame the prevailing pessimism about the ability of drugs to cure advanced cancers, facilitated the study of adjuvant chemotherapy, and helped foster the national cancer program. Today, chemotherapy has changed as important molecular abnormalities are being used to screen for potential new drugs as well as for targeted treatments.
AB - The use of chemotherapy to treat cancer began at the start of the 20th century with attempts to narrow the universe of chemicals that might affect the disease by developing methods to screen chemicals using transplantable tumors in rodents. It was, however, four World War II-related programs, and the effects of drugs that evolved from them, that provided the impetus to establish in 1955 the national drug development effort known as the Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center. The ability of combination chemotherapy to cure acute childhood leukemia and advanced Hodgkin's disease in the 1960s and early 1970s overcame the prevailing pessimism about the ability of drugs to cure advanced cancers, facilitated the study of adjuvant chemotherapy, and helped foster the national cancer program. Today, chemotherapy has changed as important molecular abnormalities are being used to screen for potential new drugs as well as for targeted treatments.
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U2 - 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-07-6611
DO - 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-07-6611
M3 - Review article
C2 - 18974103
AN - SCOPUS:55349136976
VL - 68
SP - 8643
EP - 8653
JO - Cancer Research
JF - Cancer Research
SN - 0008-5472
IS - 21
ER -