This post is also available in: English Slovenščina (Slovenian)
Cancer patients today live longer and have a better quality of life. This is mainly due to a multidisciplinary approach in cancer diagnostics. A close collaboration between pathologists, who perform histopathological examination and molecular or genetic typization, is nowadays crucial for a proper treatment. These disciplines allow us to identify targets in cancer cells and direct targeted therapy directly to those targets. Molecular biology also gives us information regarding the aggressiveness and the sensitivity of the cancer treated. Targeted cancer therapy affects the biological properties of tumors-growth factors on the cell surface and the signal pathways-in order to provide a better quality of life of metastatic tumor patients or to cure cancer. In clinical practice today, we use monoclonal antibodies that act on the receptors for epidermal and vascular growth factors, and small molecules (tyrosine kinase inhibitors) that inhibit specific cellular pathways leading to proliferation, evasion of apoptosis and metastasis. Because targeted therapy is directed to a specific target in the cell and because the same target is present in various types of cancers, specific targeted cancer drugs are effective in treatment of various types of cancers. Side effects of targeted therapy are milder compared to those arising after chemotherapy. Nevertheless, the high price of this kind of therapy remains an open issue.