Electrolyte disorders related to EGFR-targeting drugs

It is now clearly established that anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) drug class induces hypertension and proteinuria sometimes related to thrombotic microangiopathy and/or various glomerulopathies, according to capillary and glomerular VEGF and VEGF-receptor expressions. As reported in the literature, anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapies seem to be less nephrotoxic. Indeed, many reports of anti-EGFR nephrotoxicity are tubular dependent such as acute tubular necrosis, electrolyte disorders (hypophosphatemia, hypomagnesemia, etc.) or both. This is explained by elective tubular expression of renal EGF/EGFR. In this paper, we focus on electrolyte disorders related to anti-EGFR treatment and discuss the tubular involvement of these drugs based on their renal expression. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.