Cancer Cure: Latest, Most Promising Cancer Treatments and Therapy Methods

Cancer treatment and therapy methods have evolved by leaps and bounds over the past few decades. Latest research on how cancer attacks and spreads in our bodies shed light on promising treatments to fight and ultimately cure the disease.

Unfortunately, cancer’s ability to constantly evolve, spread and form resistance to medicines and drugs, claims more than 9M lives per year worldwide.

However, scientists and oncology professionals have recently uncovered new treatment methods that detect and tackle the disease better than already known treatment methods like chemotherapy. New methods which help detect the disease at early stages and treat even the more severe types of cancer at later stages have been gaining momentum since last year and well into this 2019.

That said, here’s a look at 6 cancer treatment methods that have recently seen massive advances:

1.Immunotherapy is evolving

Immunotherapy or immuno-oncology as the name implies leverages the body’s immune system to completely stop or slow down the growth of cancer cells. It basically boost’s your body’s natural defense mechanism to identify and fight the affected cells.

Although immunotherapy has been around for more than a decade, it has not been as effective due  to the ability of cancer cells to mask themselves to our immune systems- making them hard to detect.

That said, new immunotherapy drugs namely check-point inhibitors and biomarkers are better ‘marking’ or detecting these cancer cells. Plus, recently approved immunotherapy drugs, cancer vaccines, cytokines and monoclonal antibodies are already showing promise in effectively giving our immune system the power to effectively attack various types and stages of brain, bladder, mouth and kidney cancer for multiple patients.

2. Precision Medication: a viable option

Up until now, the type and stage of cancer would dictate the course of medication and treatment. However,  it is clear that a treatment method that works for one patient, may not for another.

This is where precision medicine comes in.

Precision or personalized medication allows doctor to decide the best course of treatment based on the genetic makeup of the patient. Essentially precision or personalized medication uses blood and genetic tests to understand how each person’s cancer is growing or evolving.

Typically, a combination of radiation, chemotherapy, surgery and immunotherapy is used to treat cancerious activityc cure cure. With precision medication, information on the genetic changes of a patient’s tumor can help decide which treatment it is most likely to respond to.

Researchers have not yet discovered all the genetic changes that can cause cancer to grow and spread. But recent advances in the area along with countless new and advanced technology has made precision medication an extremely viable option.

3. Gene Therapy Tackling Cancerous Mutations

Gene therapy involves introducing enzymes or proteins directly into cancerous cells to attack the genetic mutation that they are going through. It is also being used to make cancerous cells more receptive to treatment methods like chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Genes are responsible for virtually every aspect of cell health: they hold the code for proteins that enable cells to grow, function, and divide. When a gene is affected by cancer, it can give rise to proteins that are unable to do their job.

Although in the early stages, research has revealed a number of ways gene therapies effectively help cancer treatment:

• Improving the response of immune cells
• Blocking out resources that cancer cells need to survive and spread
• Making the body more susceptible to various cancer treatments

While various gene carriers like Adenoviruses have shown promising results, researchers and scientists are working on better and easier ways to introduce gene therapy into cancer cells.

Join the brightest minds in cancer research and clinical and medical oncology at the European Congress on Clinical Oncology. ECCO facilitates presentations, panels and discussions around the latest advances and challenges in immunotherapy, early diagnosis bio-markers and clinical trial design.

For early registration passes and more details visit: The Official ECCO Website.

4. Adoptive Cell Transfer Treatments

A combination of immunotherapy, precision medication and gene therapy, adoptive cell transfer has been seeing tremendous success rates off late. Essentially, adoptive cell transfer involves removing a sample of immune cells from the patient’s affected body part, re-engineering it and then re-insterting them back into the patient’s body.

One such adoptive cell transfer therapy that has been gaining momentum is the CAR-T cell therapy especially in treating leukaemia and lymphoma. T cells which are already present in our bodies detect and fight various virus and cancer activity. But as it can be difficult to detect and even attack the more stubborn cancer types, adoptive cell transfer is used to boost the immune response of these T cells.

5. Targeted Therapies

A step up from chemotherapy, targeted therapies are fine-tuned to directly attack cancer cells. On one hand, chemotherapy is designed to kill rapidly dividing cells throughout the entire body, including hair and other important immune cells which we actually need. On the other hand, targeted therapies can zero in on specific cell parts- be it genes, proteins and blood vessels.

Essentially targeted therapies can also block mutations or growth of blood vessels that help cancerous cells survive and thrive. This method is already proving effective for severe cases of breast, colorectal, lung and skin cancer.

6. Liquid Biopsy for more accurate detection

2018 has been a milestone year for liquid biopsies with the market expected to reach over $2 billion by 2022.

Liquid biopsy tests undoubtedly have massive potential, with the promise that an affordable and accessible blood test will be enough to accurately detect and diagnose cancer in early stages.

These tests not only confirm the presence of cancerous activity, but also provide invaluable information about the nature of the specific genetic changes occuring in the cancer cells.

Looking Ahead

The cancer research and medical community is extremely hopeful that recent approvals and new technology will pave way for these treatment methods to be even more accurate and effective.

Plus, with new, more effective and accessible drugs in the works- the future of cancer cure definitely looks promising.

In fact, this 2019 the global cancer community comes together at the European Congress on Clinical Oncology on 5th October to discuss the advances, challenges and future of viable cancer treatment and therapy methods.

Grab your own place at the conference: visit the official ECCO website for more information.

.