Emerging Role of Tyrosine Kinases as Drugable Targets in Cancer

Tyrosine kinases (TKs) play a significant role in cancerogenesis and cancer cell function. Initial developments in this field go back to the early 80s, but the success story really started with the selective BCR-ABL inhibitor, imatinib. Owing to the cancer-driving role of BCR-ABL in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML), excellent response rates lead to fast FDA approval in both the first and second treatments of CML patients. Since then, numerous TKs were identified. TK inhibitors have been developed accordingly, and technology to test for ideal drug–target interactions has profoundly improved. By now, medical oncologists and hematologists struggle to have a pool of potential TK inhibitors, where the most efficient one could be picked out to treat a specific cancer patient, which might also help overcome the occurring resistance mechanisms against TK inhibitors. Whether disease eradication can be achieved via single or sequential TK inhibitor treatment(s) needs to be tested in the present and in the future.