Therapeutic drug monitoring in oncology: does it have a future?

"...clinical application of cancer drugs represents a unique toxicological and clinical compromise where the seriousness of the disease, similarity of target and normal body cells, and overt toxicity of the drugs applied are uncomfortable bed fellows." Cancer is a major health issue worldwide and chemotherapeutic drugs are a major component of the treatment of this disease, particularly in its advanced stages. In any disease, the net efficacy of an administered pharmaceutical is the sum of its therapeutic and toxic actions. For many drugs and in the majority of patients, the concentrations at which serious toxicity is seen is many times...