[Targeted therapy of urological tumours. Experimental field or established therapeutic approach?].

Unlike conventional systemic chemotherapies, the aim of targeted therapeutic approaches is not to address general mechanisms involved in cellular replication. In contrast, they aim at such regulatory pathways that have been identified to be involved in the progression of human malignant disease. Whereas the application of targeted therapeutic modalities is well established for the treatment of metastatic renal cell cancer, only very few data on their clinical efficacy during the treatment of other urological tumours such as prostate and bladder cancer are currently available. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the current status regarding the relevance of targeted therapeutic approaches during the treatment of urological cancers of different origin.