EDISCIENCES

ABSTRACT

Systemic chemotherapy represents the most commonly used therapeutic strategy for patients with advanced cancer. Cytotoxic drugs cause cell death by inducing DNA damage and cell replication inhibition. The majority of antiblastic drugs display their effects on both neoplastic and healthy cellular lines. Therefore, the lack of a target action is the cause of several toxicities related to their administration. Nevertheless, recent advances in earlier diagnosis and the use of more effective chemotherapy regimens have improved patients’ survival. Indeed, cancer may be considered a chronic disease and different treatments lines are usually administered to each patient more and more often for a long time. The reason why there is a needs of effective and well tolerated drugs. In this regard, metronomic chemotherapy (mCT), which is characterized by low dose oral continuous drug administration, has been shown to be effective with acceptable toxicity in different solid toumors and may represent an alternative treatment approach expecially in elderly patients. This review report the rationale and the possible applications of mCT in the elderly patients.