EVOLVING ROLE OF ORAL CHEMOTHERAPY FOR THE TREATMENT OF PATIENTS WITHNEOPLASMS

The past 20 years has seen art increasing trend toward the use of oral chemotherapy for the treatment of patients with a variety of malignan cies. The advantages of oral chemotherapy include lower treatment cost , compared with that of intravenous (IV) administration, and more conv enient treatment for patients. Several oral drugs are now used routine ly for cancer treatment, and others are tender investigation. Hormonal agents, such as tamoxifen, flutamide, and megestrol acetate, and anti metabolites, such as hydroxyurea, which are available only in oral for mulation, have proven both safe and efficacious. Several other oral dr ugs, including etoposide and cyclophosphamide, have been shown to be u seful and often as effective as their IV formulations, and more data o n the bioavailability of these agents have become available. In additi on, several new and promising oral agents (platinum compounds, fluorin ated pyrimidines, topoisomerase I inhibitors, and others) are likely t o be introduced into clinical practice in the near future. It is possi ble that eventually, oral combination chemotherapy will be art accepte d and standard approach for the treatment of patients with marry types of cancer.