Educational Forum- Monoclonal antibodies: Targeted therapy

In an ongoing quest to improve the therapeutic arsenal against cancer, a fourth weapon other than surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy has emerged, i.e. targeted therapy. Targeted therapy includes, tyrosine kinase receptor inhibitors (small molecule inhibitors like imatinib, gefitinib, erlotinib), angiogenesis inhibitors (bevacizumab), proteasome inhibitors (bortezomib), biological response modifiers (denileukin diftitox) and monoclonal antibodies (MAbs). The remarkable specificity of MAbs as targeted therapy makes them promising agents for human therapy. Not only can MAbs be used therapeutically to protect against disease, they can also be used to diagnose a variety of illnesses, measure serum protein and drug levels, type tissue and blood and identify infectious agents and specific cells involved in immune response. About a quarter of all biotech drugs in development are MAbs, and about 30 products are in use or being investigated. As a majority of the MAbs are used for the treatment of various hematological and nonhematological malignancies, their role in cancer is discussed.