Cancer treatment initially involved chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Chemotherapy has a number of side effects that arise from the fact that the chemicals used target rapidly multiplying cells thus destroying other normal body cells exhibiting similar characteristics such as follicular cells. Radiotherapy, on the other hand, destroys cells at the region where rays are directed and since it is not very specific to cancer cells, it ends up destroying the surrounding normal cells. New cancer treatments has been introduced recently that are more specific, as they target cancerous cells only, effective in their elimination of the cancer cells and fast in action compared to chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
Gene knockdown is one of the novel approaches developed to treat cancer. A drug, ALN-VSP01, is currently in use to stop the production of essential molecule by cancer cells. The drug contains siRNA, which are tiny molecules that inhibit synthesis of proteins that helps the tumor to survive. This interferes with cell division and supply of blood to tumor causing shrinkage and death. The molecules, however, are very susceptible to nucleases hence they are introduced into the cancer cells packaged in a liposome. Viruses have the capability to alter the working mechanism of a cell or cause death once it enters the cell. Some harmless viruses are genetically modified to target specific cancer cells and destroy them effectively. Vaccinia is one of the advances made in the use of viruses in cancer treatment.
One major cause of cancer is mutation of various genes such as tumor suppressor genes, but the genes could also get accidentally dormant. In such a case, epigenetic drugs such as suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid have been developed to inhibit the action of histone deacetylase involved in the silence of these genes useful in apoptosis. Silencing or making cancer cells dormant is another new approach employed in cancer treatment. Unlike in chemotherapy, where drugs are used to kill cancer cells due to their rapid multiplication and slightly destroying surrounding normal cells, a new drug, tipifarib, is a combination of molecules that bind to farnesyl transferase that is an enzyme which worsen cancer. Vaccines, which are killed tumor cells bound to molecules, are used to evoke an immune response with retention of memory for pernicious attack of cancer cells on a successive encounter. Surface antigens of cancer cells are also used to elicit an immune response in this approach.
Another new cancer treatment is the use of non-thermal irreversible electroporation that involves application of short high voltage pulses at the specific affected area to permanently perforating the cell membrane causing death of the cell. Lastly, gene therapy proves to be among the best new cancer treatments. Immune cells, in this case T cells, are recovered from the patient suffering from lymphocytic leukemia. An antibody specific to the particular antigen on the surface of the affected B cells is inserted in the T cells with the help of a harmless virus. The T cells are re-introduced into the circulation of the patient where they attack the cancer cells.
In conclusion, new cancer treatments, which are fast, very effective and with less side effects, are rapidly replacing the less effective and most commonly used cancer treatments such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which cause severe side effects to cancer patients.