The U.S Food and Drug Administration has just approved the oral dual-target agent sorafenib (Nexavar) for the treatment of patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma. This is good news since standard chemotherapy has not been effective against these tumors.

This pill is just the first of an avalanche of new treatments called “targeted therapy” that will be put into general use over the next few years. Other agents already on the market include imatinib (Gleevec) for chronic myelogenous leukemia and erlotinib (Tarceva) for non-small cell lung cancer.

For the more courageous readers, here is a summary of sorafenib’s (formerly labeled BAY 43-9006) mechanism of action in renal cell carcinoma. Of course, we oncologists have no trouble pronouncing such Shakespearean phrases as “the RAS-RAF-mitogen-activated protein / extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MEK)-ERK-MAP kinase pathway.” Nothing to it, my liege…

(Reminds me of why I nearly flunked out of Molecular Biology 101).