Evaluation of therapeutics' drug monitoring during cancer chemotherapy: A review

Therapeutics' drug monitoring (TDM) has been employed in the clinical patient therapy since early 1960s. In order to minimize toxicity, maximize therapeutic results, or to achieve both, it requires measuring and interpreting drug concentrations in biological fluids and modifying medication dosages or schedules. According to the hypothesis, a drug must meet numerous requirements in order to be useful for TDM. Although, the number of cancer chemotherapy treatment options has grown significantly in recent years. It has been seen that this sector is historically dependent on an outdated method of individual medication dosing based on body size measures (mg/m²) or weight (kg) and still does so in the current healthcare context. TDM is a broad term that applies to a variety of medications from various therapeutic classes, including cardio-active substances, anti-epileptic drugs, anti-inflammatory drugs, respiratory drugs, smooth muscle relaxants, antibiotics as well as few chemotherapy drugs for cancer, immunosuppressants, antidepressants. Despite high inter-individual variability of many anticancer medications, TDM is uncommon in chemotherapy management. In this review, pharmacokinetics is also mentioned in relation to anticancer chemotherapeutic medicines. In this review, the limited instances where oncotherapy practice is currently using TDM are also mentioned and suggested additional pharmaceuticals for which this practice may be appropriate.