Klin Onkol 2002; 15(5): 176-182.
Summary: Effective therapy for patients with cancer should include maximal tumor cell killing with minimal injury to normal tissue. Radioand chemotherapy for treatment of malignancies are often associated with significant toxicity. Much effort is being made to reduce the toxicity of treatment in order to improve the quality of life of cancer patients. Because toxicities associated with radioand chemotherapy can adversely affect shortand long-term pacient quality of life, they can limit the dose and duration of treatment, and may be life-threatening, specific agents designed to ameliorate or eliminate certain radioand chemotherapy toxicities have been developed. One approach to reduce the toxicity is the concominat treatment with radioand chemoprotective agents. Cytoprotection of healthy tissue by thiol group donors is one of the most promising lines of research and clinical practice. Amifostine protects normal tissues from the damaging effects of irradiation and chemotherapy. Amifostine treated patients showed less acute radiation toxicity and significantly less severe delayed radiation toxicity in normal tissue compared with that in patients receiving radiation therapy alone. This paper presents current knowledge about amifostine pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties, and therapeutic potencial in therapy of various malignat diseases. Basic knowledge about the effects of radioprotectors and radiosensitizers on radiotherapy is described in this article. The increasing body of biochemical, preclinical, and clinical data could justify the use of protectors such as amifostine with radiotherapy to provide improved therapeutic efficacy and quality of life for the patient.
