GLUTATHIONE BASED APPROACHES TO IMPROVING CANCER-TREATMENT

The use of cytotoxic chemotherapy for cancer therapy has been very suc cessful in the treatment and often cure of patients with particular ne oplasms, such as testicular carcinomas and some lymphomas. In addition , the use of adjuvant chemotherapy in patients whose primary tumor has been surgically removed contributes significantly to cure rates in so me of the more common malignancies such as breast carcinoma and colon cancer. Nonetheless, for most patients with metastatic malignancies, c urrent antineoplastic drugs provide only brief remissions with few or no long term cures. In addition, the side effects of therapy lead to s ubstantial morbidity in nearly all patients. Insights derived from mod el system studies on two glutathione based lead compounds, TER286 and TER199, suggest new clinical strategies and raise interesting basic re search questions regarding the cell biology foundations of cancer chem otherapy. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.