Cancer. The word itself causes fear and dread in millions of people every day.
However, this scourge on humanity is much more than the terrifying umbrella term for over two hundred different diseases which can affect almost any part of the body.
It's a scary thought that since I was a teenager (some 20+ years ago) the probability of getting some form of cancer has changed dramatically from; 1 in 8 people will be directly affected by cancer in the 90s to the current estimate of 1 in every 3 people who will get diagnosed with some form of cancer in the future.
I know it sounds bad, terrifying even. But the future is looking brighter for life-extending treatments and scientific breakthroughs which could make some cancers a thing of the past. At some distant point in our future, it's likely a one size fits all cure will be available as easily as aspirin is now, but for now, we will have a look at some of the exciting new treatments in the battle against cancer.
Immunotherapy
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, a type of immunotherapy, is a cancer treatment that enhances the body’s immune response to fight off cancerous cells. (Verma and Rafiq, 2022)
I know what you are thinking it jumped out at me too, it sounds like it belongs in the opening sequence of the new resident evil TV show on Netflix. However, this therapy is looking promising with two patients with leukaemia who were treated with it and have been cancer free for over a decade. Take that in for a second, ten years it's not new by any stretch of the imagination it just takes such things so long to be approved for long-term treatments.
According to a recently published paper; Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T Cell Therapy for Glioblastoma, Genetic modification of T cells to express chimeric antigen receptors (Cars) has yielded remarkable clinical outcomes and initiated a novel era for cancer immunotherapy. This is exciting news for those suffering from leukaemia and lymphoma-related cancers.
This treatment only became possible due to the completion of the ‘Human Genome Project ' and the mapping of the complete genetic code of humanity. This helped scientists work out that our genetic code is a multimillion-strong list of switches that could possibly be used to switch off diseases and possibly aging. In reality, we are still in the infancy of the practical uses of this data. The possibilities are mind-blowing and with the advent of Crisp r technology, the chances of eradicating cancer and disease in the future are getting better every day.
One negative to this treatment is the cost, Dostarlimab (also known as TSR-042) which has been developed by GlaxoSmithKline is approximately $11,000 a dose which really does show that dying can be increasingly profitable.
High intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU)/ Oncotripsy.
High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) is a treatment that aims to kill cancer cells with high-frequency sound waves. HIFU doesn't pass through solid bone or air, so it's unsuitable for every cancer. HIFU is a cancer treatment that uses high-frequency sound waves. You have HIFU from a machine. The machine gives off the sound waves which deliver a strong beam to a specific part of cancer. This heats and destroys the cancer cells. (www.cancerresearchuk.org, n.d.)
So far this treatment has mainly been associated with the treatment of Prostate cancer with hugely positive results. This has opened the door for its use in the treatment of other soft tissue cancers, for example, rectal cancer, cervical cancer, and vaginal cancer. womb cancer, soft tissue sarcoma, kidney, and liver cancers. This treatment is still technically in the experimental and testing phase but just like with the CAR T cell it is still in the early stages and as the knowledge and technology grow daily so do the practical applications for this treatment which could go well beyond the treatment of just cancers.
Pressurized Intraperitoneal Aerosolized Chemotherapy (PIPAC)
PIPAC is a novel therapeutic method of administering chemotherapy within the abdominal cavity. This approach allows for direct treatment of cancers within the peritoneum, an area in which systemic chemotherapy has a little effect due to a low number of blood vessels within this area to transmit traditional chemotherapy effectively.
At the time of treatment, the surgical team performs a minimally invasive laparoscopic procedure that allows for direct access to the abdominal cavity. A high-pressure micro-injection pump converts liquid chemotherapy into an aerosolized spray that can reach every corner of the abdominal cavity, even typically hard-to-reach tumour cells.
Chemotherapy delivery takes approximately half an hour, with the entire procedure taking approximately 60 to 90 minutes. PIPAC is delivered every six weeks for up to six cycles. (Gockel et al., 2018).
In addition to direct delivery of chemotherapy into the intraperitoneal cavity, which allows for better absorption of chemotherapy into peritoneal tumours, PIPAC offers several advantages:
Better tolerability due to short, minimally invasive procedure time. Patients are monitored overnight and are discharged within a day or two.
Aerosolization and pressurization drives chemotherapy deeper into the tissue and into all corners of the abdominal cavity, which results in better distribution.
Favourable pharmacokinetics are achieved by applying only 10-20% of the usual systemic dose.
Lower doses of chemotherapy are required to achieve efficacy, which results in a better toxicity profile in comparison to traditional chemotherapy administration.
Treatment is repeatable. It can be delivered frequently and provides multiple opportunities for tumour staging and response assessment.
Treatment is possible in patients with a high disease burden, including colorectal and gastric cancer cases, when surgical de-bulking may not be feasible. This is a great alternative for patients with PC who are unable to undergo surgical de-bulking or HIPEC
'More cancer cures are on the horizon.'
Dr Sheng Ding, Dean and Bayer Distinguished Professor, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tsinghua University
Cure Research.
According to ‘Worldwide Cancer Research,’ there are currently 26 active investigations into cures for some cancers. (Worldwide Cancer Research, 2022) This is big exciting news but there is a terrifying lack of data from the United States of America in such research. I can only surmise that this has a lot to do with the private nature of America's healthcare system and the mentality of ‘care for profit’ which would give the pharmaceutical industry good reason to suppress any cure. There is a lot more money to be made by treating a patient over several years or decades than any possible cure could make them and their shareholders. This to me shows a huge problem of possible cures being found in our Capitalist society, Money and profit dictate policy.
Old Drugs with new uses could be a gamechanger in the fight against cancer.
The treatment of cancer is being revolutionized by the discovery that existing drugs, including some used to treat depression and heart disease, could reverse the key changes in cancer cells that are associated with their ability to spread.
Again this is still quite early on in the research stage but the finding already shows good promise in stopping some cancers from metastasizing and spreading. For all we know the cure for cancer could be a drug we have known about for a long time and just used to treat other ailments, never knowing its ability to fight cancer. I will follow up in a later blog about any future discoveries in this area.
“The tissue and cancer type-specificity is the most interesting to me because this means the drugs are less likely to yield systemic toxicity or other side effects. This means that they could be added to existing treatments to reduce metastasis without adding to the toxicity these treatments have for the patients themselves. Also, since we only tested FDA/EMA-approved drugs, these could be delivered much more quickly to the clinic.”
Professor Eric SchirmerPersonal Chair of Nuclear Envelope Biology, Institute of Cell Biology
RefleXion X1
Now it just looks like a CT scanner you might find in any hospital or clinic but according to its creators, it is so much more. According to their website and I quote,
“RefleXion’s biology-guided radiotherapy (BgRT) allows us to detect and respond to signals emitted from the cancer itself, and for the first time, use them to guide immediate treatment.”
It s a bold claim but the science is solid and this is looking like a promising piece of equipment in the fight against cancer. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that this technology is shared with the world and not kept in America for profit's sake.
These were just a few of the new advances in the constant fight against cancer. While researching this topic I found plenty for a follow-up in a few months as things are moving ahead faster than anyone thought possible just a decade ago. With the recent advent in AI research, the future is looking bright for a possible one size fits all cure in future and with new research with electromagnetic field therapy and the possible or probable use of nanobots in the future then a large number of these diseases under the dreaded cancer umbrella could possibly if not probably be confined to the history books, we can but hope.
Sources
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