At the 20th Annual Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium in New York, N.Y., this past November there were numerous presentations about advances in chemotherapy clinical trials that used triplets -- combinations of three chemotherapy agents as opposed to more conventional single or double agent therapy. BenchMarks summarizes several presentations that revolve around two newer classes of drugs, called taxanes and platinums, which make up many of the new triplets. BenchMarks also talked to Elise Kohn, M.D., principal investigator, Laboratory of Pathology, National Cancer Institute, to get her perspective on clinical trial design and drug choice.

The taxanes are a group of drugs that includes paclitaxel (Taxol®) and docetaxel (Taxotere®). Taxanes have a unique way of preventing the growth of cancer cells by affecting cell structures called microtubules, which play an important role in cell function. In normal cell growth, pre-existing microtubules, which support cell shape and act as "highways" for transport of materials inside the cell, are completely rearranged into a machine called the spindle when a cell starts dividing.