. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2014 Dec 1.

Published in final edited form as: Trends Cell Biol. 2013 Sep 21;23(12):10.1016/j.tcb.2013.08.003. doi: 10.1016/j.tcb.2013.08.003

Table 1.

Major determinants of chemotherapy treatment success (why chemotherapy works):

Drug Class	Targets	Examples	Determinants of Therapy Success
Drug Class	Targets	Examples	Primary	Secondary	Cancer Type
Classical cytotoxic therapy	Ubiquitous cellular elements (microtubules, DNA, topoisomerases)	Paclitaxel (microtubules), Topotecan (topoisomerase II), Doxorubicin (DNA)	Pretreatment mitochondrial apoptotic priming	Signaling dynamics post treatment	Multiple myeloma, ALL, ovarian cancer[5]; CLL[27]; AML[28]
Targeted therapy	Cell-specific targets (mutated oncogenes, differentially expressed oncogenes)	Erlotinib (EGFR), Vemurafenib (V600E), Imatinib (BCR-ABL)	Presence or absence of target	Pretreatment mitochondrial apoptotic priming, signaling dynamics post treatment	Non-small-cell lung cancer[81,82]; melanoma[83]; CML[84]
Antibody-based therapy	Cell surface markers	Rituximab (anti-CD20 antibody), brentuximab-vedotin (anti-CD30:MMAE antibody-drug conjugate)	Presence or absence of target	Immune system competence	Lymphoma[85]; lymphoma and Hodgkin’s disease[86]
Immune modulation (reversal of immune checkpoint blockade)	Immune system (tumor tolerance, tumor-associated macrophages)	Ipilimumab (anti-CTLA4 antibody),	Immune system anti-tumor response	Immune system competence	Melanoma[66,87]