(Newswire.net — September 19, 2019) — The world of cancer treatment is constantly changing, as advances in research, innovation and technology give rise to new treatment options. But with so much information out there, and much of it complicated, it can be hard to know which treatments are right for you.
The Broader Picture
Cancer treatments impact what doctors call “outcomes”; the most common “outcome” being 5-10 year survival rate. Clearly progress has been made in treatments: the overall ten-year survival rate for cancer is now above 50%. However, measuring survival rate can be problematic as an indicator: this figure does not take account of the variations in values for different cancers. Typically more progress has been made in some cancers, e.g. testicular, prostate, and breast, than in others like brain and pancreatic cancers.
Targeted Treatments Tend To Be More Effective
Currently, surgery remains the most effective first line cancer treatment when available. If a cancer is contained in a limited area, it can often be surgically removed, often leading to remission or cure. Therefore, surgery is often highly effective as it can target the cancerous area well.
Radiotherapy also works on this principle of careful targeting. The treatment works by damaging cell DNA and thereby causing a cell either to stop dividing or to commit cell suicide (called apoptosis). Its success relies on delivering the right amount of radiation to cancerous cells only, so that adjacent tissues are left untouched.
Chemotherapy on the other hand tends to be a systemic treatment, affecting the whole body. Targeting here is much more difficult. This cancer treatment works on the principle of using specific chemical compounds (drugs) to kill cells that are rapidly dividing in the body. The problem with this is that the body also contains many healthy cells that divide quickly, such as those that line the gut and mouth, as well as those that make hair grow. Thus, these cells are typically killed along with cancer cells, causing the well-known side effects of chemotherapy.
In recent years, however, new drugs have been developed that allow specific cancer pathways to be targeted. These are known as targeted cancer treatments. For instance:
- Kinase inhibitors treat cancer by interfering with cell signals (kinases) which dictate a cell’s ability to divide
- Angiogenesis inhibitors interfere with the body’s ability to create new blood vessels
- PARP inhibitors interfere with the ability of cancer cells to repair their DNA
- Monoclonal antibodies deliver, for example, toxic substances directly into cancer cells
These drugs are highly targeted and tend to have fewer side effects than traditional chemotherapies.
Stem Cell Treatment
Certain cancers, like leukemia and myeloma, can be treated with stem cell treatments. These types of treatments include bone marrow transplants for cancer patients; this is used to replace the body’s immune system after intense chemotherapy and sometimes radiotherapy.
2020 Cancer Treatment
The future poses many positive outcomes. Within the next two decades, most cancers will be controllable to a certain extent. There will be enough treatment options available to keep cancer in check and stop it from spreading. This will give most patients a longer, happier life.
The cure for cancer will no longer be the only satisfactory outcome, and the fear that cancer will lead to death will be replaced by an acceptance that treatments can manage the disease over long periods of time.
Diet, exercise and lifestyle choices will play an increasingly important role in the efficacy of these treatments, lessening their negative side effects over time.
If you are a cancer patient, family member or supporter of someone dealing with cancer, there are many things you can do to help yourself. Curve life offer an 11- part video series that helps answer the number one question patients ask their doctors: “What can I do to help?”. It turns out the answer is “a lot”.