REVIEW ON THE METRONOMIC THERAPY OF MULTIPLE MYELOMA

Iftikhar Ali, Mati Ullah, Shahzad Gul Hasan and Shangqin Liu*

ABSTRACT

Metronomic chemotherapy is a new method of administrating drug that overcomes the hurdles faced by conventional therapy. This multidrug regimen involves the administration of comparatively low but frequent doses of conventional chemotherapeutic drugs with break free intervals to prevent relapse or resistance. The target tissue of metronomic therapy is activated endothelial cells of the blood vessels as opposed to conventional therapy. Conventional chemotherapy is the previous treatment modality which involves Maximum Tolerated Dose (MTD) with intervals. The rest periods between the therapies was made to avoid any drug toxicity and to reduce the side effects faced by the patients. However, this led to the re-growth of the tumor cells and chemo resistance. In this article, we will evaluate the benefits of metronomic chemotherapy for patients suffering from multiple myeloma. With the knowledge of the previous therapeutic protocols against cancer, we will discuss the new modality in detail to figure out the clinical benefits of this treatment.

Keywords: Metronomic chemotherapy, conventional chemotherapy, angiogenesis, malignant cells, toxicity, Multiple myeloma, plasma cells, cancer.