Principles of cytotoxic chemotherapy

Chemotherapy with cytotoxic anticancer agents remains the mainstay of therapy targeted at specific cellular mechanisms in malignant disease. Increasingly it is being used earlier on in a patient’s treatment as an adjunct to either surgery or radiotherapy. Newer molecularly targeted agents are beginning to show great promise in some disease, such as gastrointestinal stromal tumours and chronic myeloid leukaemia.