Review on: Signal Transduction Pathways as Therapeutic Targets in Cancer Therapy

Cancer is the second leading cause of mortality and it is a worldwide public health issue and has severe social and economic consequences. Cancer arises through a multistep, mutagenic process whereby cancer cells acquire a common set of properties including unlimited proliferation potential, self-sufficiency in growth signals, and resistance to anti-proliferative and apoptotic signals. Chemotherapeutic and cytotoxic drugs are widely used in the treatment of cancer. In spite of the improvements in the life quality of patients, their effectiveness is compromised by several disadvantages. Better understanding of the pathogenesis of this disease, identification of molecular targets for therapeutic intervention and availability of promising molecularly targeted therapies may change this dismal picture. These demands lead for developing new effective strategies with focusing on tumor cells and minimum side effects. Targeted cancer therapies have been defined as a new type of emerging treatments. This article provides an overview of: the characteristics and function of signal transduction pathway and emerging RTKs for targeted cancer therapies and therapy targeted at Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK Pathways and PI3k-Akt-mTOR-pathways. Future research in this area will maximize clinical benefit while minimizing the toxicity and cost through utilization of novel targeted agents.