Investigating Toxicities after Angiogenesis Inhibition to Improve Cancer Patient Care

Molecular targeted therapies, in particular inhibitors of angiogenesis, have emerged as effective forms of cancer therapy. As these drugs have been specifically designed to target cancer cells or tumour supporting cells (as for angiogenesis inhibitors), the adverse effects on normal cells were expected to be minimal when compared to cytotoxic chemotherapeutic drugs . Regrettably, unexpected off target side effects have nevertheless been described in patients. As the future of cancer therapy is expected to rely on such targeted therapies, with a decisive trend toward combination with traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs,  an urgent need exists to  assess  mechanisms of toxicity for targeted therapies delivered either alone or in combination. In this session, new approaches to aid in the early identification of toxicities associated with targeted cancer therapies will be presented, as well as new data underpinning toxicity mechanisms in non-tumor tissues.