Cancer Treatments: Information and Research News

Author: Disabled World (DW)
Updated/Revised Date: 2025/03/19
Category Topic: Treatment of Cancer (Publications Database)

Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Subtopics

Synopsis: Latest developments, news, and research report updates concerning tumor and cancer treatment methods. Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, and targeted therapy (including immunotherapy such as monoclonal antibody therapy). The choice of therapy depends upon the location and grade of the tumor and the stage of the disease, as well as the general state of the patient (performance status).

Introduction

Cancer can be treated by surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormonal therapy, and targeted therapy (including immunotherapy such as monoclonal antibody therapy). The choice of therapy depends upon the location and grade of the tumor and the stage of the disease, as well as the general state of the patient (performance status). A number of experimental cancer treatments are also under development.

Focus

Complete removal of the cancer without damage to the rest of the body is the goal of treatment. Occasionally, this can be accomplished by surgery, but the propensity of cancers to invade adjacent tissue or to spread to distant sites by microscopic metastasis often limits its effectiveness. The effectiveness of chemotherapy is typically limited by toxicity to other tissues in the body. Radiation can also cause damage to normal tissue.

Defining Some Cancer Terms:

• Chemotherapy - The use of medicines or drugs to treat cancer.
• Surgery - Used to diagnose, treat, or even help prevent cancer in some cases.
• Immunotherapy - Treatment that uses your body's own immune system to help fight cancer.
• Radiation therapy - Uses high-energy particles or waves to destroy or damage cancer cells.
• Hormonal therapy - The growth of some cancers can be inhibited by providing or blocking certain hormones.
• Photodynamic therapy - PDT is a treatment that uses special drugs, called photosensitizing agents, along with light to kill cancer cells.
• Targeted therapy - A newer type of cancer treatment that uses drugs or other substances to more precisely identify and attack cancer cells, usually while doing little damage to normal cells.
• Angiogenesis inhibitors - Prevent the extensive growth of blood vessels (angiogenesis) that tumors require to survive. Some, such as bevacizumab, have been approved and are in clinical use.
• Clinical trials - Research studies that involve people. They are the final step in a long process that begins with research in a lab. Most treatments we use today are the results of past clinical trials.

Cancer Immunotherapy refers to a diverse set of therapeutic strategies designed to induce the patient's own immune system to fight the tumor. Contemporary methods for generating an immune response against tumors include intravesical BCG immunotherapy for superficial bladder cancer, and use of interferons and other cytokines to induce an immune response in renal cell carcinoma and melanoma patients.

Targeted therapy, which first became available in the late 1990s, has had a significant impact in the treatment of some types of cancer, and is currently a very active research area. This constitutes the use of agents specific for the deregulated proteins of cancer cells. Small molecule targeted therapy drugs are generally inhibitors of enzymatic domains on mutated, over-expressed, or otherwise critical proteins within the cancer cell.

The growth of some cancers can be inhibited by providing or blocking certain hormones. Common examples of hormone-sensitive tumors include certain types of breast and prostate cancers. Removing or blocking estrogen or testosterone is often an important additional treatment. In certain cancers, administration of hormone agonists, such as progestogens may be therapeutically beneficial.

Because "cancer" refers to a class of diseases, it is unlikely that there will ever be a single "cure for cancer" any more than there will be a single treatment for all infectious diseases.

Although the control of the symptoms of cancer is not typically thought of as a treatment directed at the cancer, it is a significant determinant of the quality of life of cancer patients, and plays an influential role in the decision whether the patient can undergo other treatments.

Although doctors generally have the therapeutic skills to reduce pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hemorrhage, and other common problems in cancer patients, the multidisciplinary specialty of palliative care has arisen specifically in response to the symptom control needs of this group of patients. This is an especially important aspect of care for those patients whose disease is not a good candidate for other forms of treatment.

As most treatments for cancer involve significantly unpleasant side effects, a patient with little realistic hope of a cure may choose to seek palliative care only, eschewing more radical therapies in exchange for a prolonged period of normal living.

New research may make the early detection of cancer as easy as a simple blood test. This test, called the "lymphocyte genome sensitivity" (LGS) test, could not only detect some cancers earlier than ever before, but it may eliminate the need for some types of biopsies, as well as identify those more likely to develop cancer in the future. A blood test to detect cancer and determine one's risk for cancer is a game-changer. A test like this, which is sophisticated in design and simple to perform, could make effective cancer screening available in places where traditional medical technology might not be available.