Applications of pharmacoepidemiology in cancer research

Abstract

Differences in cancer types and anticancer drug responses involved the cancer research programs in a challenging area required integration of several fields. Combination of clinical pharmacology and epidemiology termed as pharmacoepidemiology in cancer research projects ,provide cancer therapy researchers to investigate different drug responses among individuals in terms of treatment, efficacy , survival rate and adverse effects in a distinct large population . According to the published pharmacoepidemiological evidences , various significant statically observational results obtained about effects of non-anticancer drugs( antidepressant adherence and antihypertensive medications ) in breast cancer , individual effect of anticancer drug in epithelial ovarian cancer, comparison of individual and association effects of two anticancer drugs on overall pancreatic cancer survival , comparison of two anticancer drugs in myelodysplastic syndromes and role of racial variation in advanced epithelial ovarian cancer therapy. In this paper I discuss how the researches obtained their findings based on pharmacoepidemiology methods . This paper is useful for potential researchers to utilize these findings for investigation of anticancer drug effects in a well-defined population in order to assess of potential health hazard accompanied with drug use in real life and to qualify the appropriate public health effect of marketed anticancer drugs.