December 2009

The Ancient Indians were the fi rst to use pens around 5000 BCE. While these writing implements were primitive, typically consisting of hollowed out reeds that could hold a small amount of ink, which was generally soot in water with a plant gum binder, they were used for thousands of years and are still used today in certain parts of Pakistan.

Once a human malignancy metastasizes, currently available cytotoxic chemotherapy is usually palliative. While conventional chemotherapy regimens are associated with objective tumor regression, this only occurs in a minority of patients.