Preface

In preparing for clinics, rounding, or board examinations, understanding the pharmacology of the drugs and agents can be overwhelming. In medical school and residency, it is often difficult to keep up with the mechanisms of action, kinetics, and dosing schedules of so many common medications, let alone those that are used in more rare conditions, including cancer. When residents become hematology and oncology fellows, they are forced to learn a large cohort of medications very quickly, a task that is daunting, given the ever-expanding market of new chemotherapeutic agents.

Additionally, questions on the hematology and oncology board examinations related to pharmacology represent a relatively larger percentage. This is true, given that the facts focusing on the mechanisms and side effects of these drugs do not change. Moreover, we are often asked dose-limiting side effects of medications as well as the requirements for dosage reductions related to kidney and liver failure. The University of Michigan Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Program recently published an oncology board review book, Oncology Boards Flash Review, to help solidify the knowledge one needs to have for his or her test. As a companion to this manual, we have written a similar board review book to summarize information that is most pertinent to the pharmacology of chemotherapeutic agents used by practicing hematologists and oncologists. This book contains concise summaries of the various chemotherapeutic drugs by class, pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, and toxicities and includes, to date, all of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved oncology agents available to practicing clinicians. It is our hope that fellows and practicing medical hematologists/oncologists preparing for ward rounds, outpatient clinical rotations, or for their certification or recertification examinations will find our book to be a useful tool. Our goal is to help our readers summarize and solidify many important clinical facts and to help them build confidence in their knowledge of oncologic drugs.

The successful completion of this project was made possible by the editorial staff of Demos Medical Publishing, especially David D’Addona, acquisitions editor, and Joseph Stubenrauch, production editor.

Francis P. Worden, MD, RPh

Anthony J. Perissinotti, PharmD, BCOP

Bernard L. Marini, PharmD