Abstract

All of the drugs currently approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of cancer, as well as a number of newer experimental agents in clinical trials, are reviewed. The primary focus of the article is on the status of chemotherapy in the 1990s, ie, the direction in which new drug discovery strategies are moving and the criteria used for advancing compounds into clinical trials. In addition, a discussion of the approaches to cytotoxic chemotherapy with special emphasis on drug targeting, toxicity amelioration, and drug resistance has been incorporated. Estimated worldwide sales for the most commonly utilized chemotherapeutic agents is given to demonstrate the increased use of chemotherapy as a modality in the treatment of cancer.