Cancer Treatments of Today

What are the common words that can be initiated with cancer? Most likely, it would be “chemotherapy”, which is among the first thing that’ll come to your mind. However, chemotherapy isn’t always the initial course of action. There are instances in which chemo might take a step back to other treatments that might have milder side effects.

With new advances and treatments in personalized care, experts can now personalize the cancer treatment depending on the individual needs of their patient and to what type of cancer they have.

Surgery

Surgery is a vital option among cancers on top of blood cancers, along with specialized cancer surgeons trying to remove either all or the entire solid tumor. The treatment is more effective when the cancer is just at its early stages and it has not spread to other areas of the body. At the same time, the surgery can play a big role in the treatment even if the tumor already spreads to its original site.

Depending on the stage and the type of cancer, it could be an option to perform minimally invasive procedure. For instance, thoracic surgeons normally use VATS or Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Surgery. This is a minimally invasive procedure that will get rid of the early phase of lung cancer tumors. With VATS, it uses small incision instead of doing an open surgery.

Immunotherapy

This is a newer kind of treatment for cancer patients. It is using medication that is focused on revving up the immune system of the patient to fight cancer. Treatments for immunotherapy could work across various types of cancer and might be effective in treatment even with the most hard-to-treat and advanced cancers.

Researchers keep looking for potential immunotherapy but other effective FDA-approved substances are now used frequently in treating certain types of cancer.

Researchers continue to look into the potential of immunotherapy, but several effective, FDA-approved drugs are now commonly used to treat certain cancers. There are patients who might experience adverse effects, depending on the administered drugs and to the cancer type that’s being treated.

Targeted Therapies

Oncologists are using targeted therapies which is otherwise referred to as precision medicine. This is done to tailor medications for every type of cancer and patient being treated. A blood or tumor sample is being tested in order to identify the genetic profile. This enables clinicians in administering a medication that will target the genes that cause cancer cells. In such therapies, any drugs you are taking like steroids Canada may be asked by your doctor to stop as it may impact with the effectiveness of the therapy.