Cancer Treatments: What are the Latest Techniques Available?
Many people have heard about cancer, and know that it is one of the most common diseases in this day and age. However, when the subject of cancer treatments are brought up, not many people keep up to date with them.
In 2021, the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) spent more than USD 6.51 billion on cancer research. Much of these were spent on developing new cancer treatment strategies.
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Usually, among laypeople, the most talked about treatments for cancer are surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, cancer treatment strategies cover far more than these. It helps to know what the latest treatment technologies are available to you.
Cancer Treatment Methods That You Should Know
The trend for cancer treatments has been towards non-invasive or minimally invasive strategies of late. This means that researchers prefer to develop cures whereby medical instruments will not be introduced into the body, so as to hurt it in one way or another.
Invasive techniques such as surgery take a long time to heal, and can lead to increased risks of complications developing later on.
Here are some of the treatments that are being used by oncologists today.
1. Brachytherapy
Brachytherapy is actually built on the concept of radiation therapy, i.e. using small doses of radiation to kill cancer cells. Brachytherapy comes from the Greek word ‘brachy’ which means short.
In this treatment, small sources of radiation, in the form of seeds, ribbons or capsules are placed inside or very close to the tumor. This makes it a form of localized treatment. The radiation source is put in place with the help of a catheter or applicator.
Brachytherapy is often used for head and neck cancers, as well as prostate, breast, cervix and eye cancer among others.
2. Cryoablation
Cryoablation is performed using extremely cold liquid or gas. The concept behind this is to use extremely low temperatures to freeze and kill off the abnormal cancerous cells. It is also often referred to as cryosurgery or cryotherapy.
Cryoablation uses cryoprobes, which are small hollow needles, to deliver cooled liquid or gas to the affected cells. This disrupts the cellular function and structure, causing them to die. The cells are then allowed to thaw before the freezing and thawing process is repeated.
This type of minimally invasive treatment is used for bone, cervical, eye, kidney and liver cancer among others.
3. Gamma Knife
Despite having the word ‘knife’ in its name, the Gamma Knife doesn’t actually involve any surgery at all. It is actually a non-invasive radiotherapy used for brain cancer. In this treatment method, highly focused lines of gamma rays are beamed from a special machine fitted over the head.
These gamma beams are designed to be very specific, and hit even minute targets. They can deliver these high doses of radiation to targeted lesions within the brain with little to no adverse effects on the surrounding healthy cells.
Usually, the Gamma Knife is applied to small and mid-sized growths in the brain, as well as other abnormalities like blood vessel malformations, epilepsy and neurological conditions. The method is so minimally invasive that only local anesthesia or sedation is needed, and patients can complete it within one day without the need for overnight stay.
4. Cancer Immunotherapy
One strategy that oncologists use to treat cancer is to either stimulate or suppress the patient’s immune system. This is known as immunotherapy or immune-oncology. Some of the strategies here include training the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells naturally, boost the immune system and provide the body with immune components to enhance it.
Some examples of cancer immunotherapy involve targeted antibodies, cancer vaccines, tumor infecting viruses, cytokines and adjuvants.
Immunotherapy is often used in combination with other treatments, such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and targeted therapies to achieve a synergistic effect.
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5. Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant
Hematopoietic cells are basically immature blood cells that have not differentiated into the different types of blood cells like platelets, red blood cells and white blood cells. In patients suffering from blood cell cancers like leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, these hematopoietic cells are infused to replace dysfunctional or mutated blood cells.
The hematopoietic cells are harvested from peripheral blood and from the bone marrow, and they can come from the patients themselves or from a compatible donor. Once the hematopoietic cells are infused on a regular basis, they will be able to replace diseased hematopoietic cells that are producing the cancerous blood cells.
7. Targeted Cancer Therapy
In the past, many chemotherapy drugs used in cancer treatment were effective in destroying unhealthy cancerous cells. However, at the same time, they also hurt perfectly healthy cell leading to severe side effects.
As such, researchers have strived to develop chemotherapy drugs that target only cancerous cells. One example of this strategy is to use drugs that recognize and target protein sequences unique to cancer cells. Some examples of this include monoclonal antibodies, angiogenesis inhibitors, proteasome inhibitors and signal transduction inhibitors. They work to block cancer cells from growing, forming new blood vessels, use toxins to kill them, cause cancer cell death by protein modification and so on.
8. Cancer Hormone Therapy
Certain cancers, like cervical cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer depend on hormones to grow. Hormone therapy is used in two ways for cancer treatment. The first is to stop the body from producing the hormones that are encouraging the cancer, and secondly to modify the way hormones behave so that they don’t ‘feed’ the cancer cells.
Hormones are also used to ease the side effects and symptoms from other cancer treatments like radiation and chemotherapy.
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The Costs of These Modern Cancer Treatment Methods
There is no exact data of the cost of these cancer treatments in Malaysia, but there is data about how much it costs elsewhere. For example, this research paper from the USA puts the cost of Brachytherapy at more than RM37,000, while external beam radiation therapy costs about RM17,000.
Additionally, this paper mentions that cryoablation for breast cancer costs upwards of RM40,000 for a single treatment.
Another example is in the treatment of prostate cancer, whereby a combination of hormone therapy and radiation costs about RM77,000 and can even reach more than RM400,000 for advanced cases.
Planning Your Treatment Options
While discussing your cancer treatment options with your doctor, one of the significant factors you would consider would be the cost of treatment. This is one key reason why you should consider having a medical insurance plan that covers all these technologically advanced methods.
Thankfully, all the methods mentioned above and more are covered under most Malaysian medical cards for your peace of mind. Therefore, subscribing to a medical card will definitely help take one heavy burden off your shoulders.