A time travel journey through cancer therapies

The twentieth century was a landmark period in the history of cancer therapies; a time in which conventional cancer treatments such as surgery resection, radiotherapy and chemotherapy made tremendous advances and gave birth to strategies focused on greater selective targeting. Rational drug design allied to rational drug delivery, being led by novel small molecule anti-cancer compounds and monoclonal antibodies. Such approaches prolonged survival time, often without the horrific side effects of previous therapies, but rarely prevented ultimate disease relapse. Selective targeting of membrane transporters and receptors using prodrugs, polymer-cancer drug conjugates and antibody-toxin combinations has contributed to redefine the roadmap of cancer cell targeting. Current pharmacotherapies are still far from consistently delivering cures or sustained remissions. This chapter describes some of the historical events that brought about current cancer targeting strategies.