Copyright
©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Oncol. Apr 10, 2016; 7(2): 253-257
Published online Apr 10, 2016. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v7.i2.253
Published online Apr 10, 2016. doi: 10.5306/wjco.v7.i2.253
Off-label use of targeted therapies in oncology
Dominique Levêque, Division of Pharmacy, hôpital Hautepierre, 67000 Strasbourg, France
Author contributions: Levêque D wrote the paper.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest related to this work
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Dominique Levêque, PhD, Division of Pharmacy, hôpital Hautepierre, avenue Molière, 67000 Strasbourg, France. dominique.leveque@chru-strasbourg.fr
Telephone: +33-3-88128213 Fax: +33-3-88127804
Received: September 2, 2015
Peer-review started: September 8, 2015
First decision: October 16, 2015
Revised: October 23, 2015
Accepted: December 29, 2015
Article in press: January 4, 2016
Published online: April 10, 2016
Processing time: 217 Days and 23.1 Hours
Peer-review started: September 8, 2015
First decision: October 16, 2015
Revised: October 23, 2015
Accepted: December 29, 2015
Article in press: January 4, 2016
Published online: April 10, 2016
Processing time: 217 Days and 23.1 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Off-label use is defined by the prescription of a marketed drug outside the conditions described in the summary of product characteristics. This review is the first one focussing on the off-label use of targeted therapies in oncology. When compared with older agents, off-label use of targeted therapies is probably more rational through tumoral genotyping but is faced with a limited clinical support, reimbursement challenges related to the very high pricing and the cost of genotyping or molecular profiling, when applicable.