Oncological diseases annually claim hundreds of thousands of human lives, drugs to combat tumor diseases usually work according to the same principle: they kill all cells and tissues of the body indiscriminately. So to speak, "beat your own so that others are afraid." Surely, if you ask any of you about how to treat cancer, most (even doctors) will answer: chemotherapy, radiation and … that's all. Perhaps someone will remember the development in the field of targeted drug delivery. But what if I told you there are other methods? Much more effective. New and safe? This is practically a revolution in the treatment of oncology. And it has already begun.
As mentioned above, conventional chemotherapy has a systemic effect on the entire human body, destroying both diseased cells and healthy ones. Chemotherapy is the standard in the treatment of most forms of cancer, but we will discuss the methods that are much more effective. So, let's begin!
1. Biologicals
This type of anticancer agent acts in a targeted manner, killing only genetically modified cancer cells. For example, a drug, Selboraf, blocks the serine-threonine kinase encoded by the BRAF gene. The BRAF gene is responsible for the development of melanoma. Thus, all cells in the genetic set of which this gene is present will be destroyed, and the drug will simply not affect the rest of the structures!
2. Immunological preparations
This type of therapeutic agent affects the human immune system, "teaching" it to fight cancer. The fact is that (just now, don't panic!) In our body, cancer cells are formed with an enviable regularity, but they are destroyed by the immune system, which prevents such cells from dividing. At that moment, when a malfunction occurs and a cell appears that is not "determined" by the immune system as foreign, and the tumor process starts. Immunological drugs affect the immune system in such a way that the "neglected" type of tumors again begins to be perceived as foreign. Thus, the drug only spurs our body to kill tumor formations on its own.
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One of these drugs, which is already used in the treatment of cancer, is the drug Opdivo.
3. Personal genetic research
Such studies include the analysis of tumor tissue and answer a number of questions: the presence of certain mutations in the structure of the tumor, allowing to provide effective treatment with a specific biological drug, the effect of different types of chemotherapy on a specific tumor (roughly the same as determining the sensitivity of bacteria to antibiotics), the effect of immunological and biological drugs on the tumor. "So what is the revolution here?" - you ask. The bottom line is that the research data are personalized - they provide answers for the treatment of a specific type of cancer in a particular patient, which means that you can choose a drug that will be most effective for a given patient. That is, to immediately select the most effective medicine and its dosage, without spending many months.
Well, as you can see, medicine does not stand still, and we simply lose sight of many new trends. All of these methods are already working. And even more are being developed and undergoing clinical trials, so it is quite possible that the day is not far off when humanity will be able to defeat diseases that are considered incurable today. Be healthy!
VLADIMIR KUZNETSOV