Tailoring antineoplastic therapy - pharmacogenomics opening the door

Pharmacogenomics is starting to deliver on the promise of individualising cancer therapy, giving doctors the ability to choose the best drug and the best dose for each patient based on which variants they possess of important genes. Irinotecan, fluorouracil, raltitrexed and methotrexate are among the drugs which may soon be able to be tailored to specific groups of patients. Speakers at a conference on Pharmacogenomics, SNPs* and Gene Patenting [San Diego, US; February 2001] have been updating delegates on progress in this area.