Latest Cancer Treatment Methods
When you hear the horror stories about radiation and chemotherapy and what they do to the human body, the search for the latest cancer treatment methods becomes paramount. The traditional treatments for cancer are often worse than the disease itself, but the traditional treatments are hardly the only option open to you – and even the ‘traditional’ treatments are being used in new ways that are less damaging and more effective than ever.
One example of this ‘improved’ traditional therapy is the new British technology called the CyberKnife, or IRIS system. The CyberKnife is a robotic machine that can apply small doses of radiation over very specific areas, allowing even oddly-shaped tumors to be burned away with a minimum of damage to the surrounding tissue. The result is radiation therapy that doesn’t produce the amount of necrosis and immune system overload that standard rad therapy does.
Even with a CyberKnife, however, some harsh side effects can still make life miserable. But alternative treatments that haven’t been proven to help directly fight cancer have been proven to deal with these secondary problems quite effectively. For example, many radiation patients suffer xerostomia – severe dry mouth – but a University of Texas study revealed that acupuncture helps with xerostomia as well as several other common nasty side effects of radiation and chemotherapy.
For skin cancer, several methods have recently come into common use that are out of the ordinary. Micrographic surgery involved stripping away very thin layers of tumor and surrounding tissue, then investigating to see what changes have occurred in the shape of the tumor, and adjusting the area of removal for the next layer accordingly. As such, the result is a much smaller wound than from a normal excision. This technique has a 97% cure rate for skin cancer – much better than the other latest cancer treatment methods.
A fascinating new technology has recently come under the spotlight in which ferrous nanoparticles ‘programmed’ to cling to cancer cells are injected into the body. A powerful magnet is applied which causes the nanoparticles along with the attached cancer cells to veer toward the magnet, allowing the cancer particles to be ‘collected’ in the abdomen for easy excretion. While this technique doesn’t have a profound effect on the main tumor, it is excellent for keeping the tumor from metastasizing and slows tumor growth. The major experiments in this technology have been done on ovarian cancer, but there is speculation about its applicability to a wide range of tumors.
Finally, fresh from Australia comes the latest cancer treatment methods that use the idea of engineering bacteria to fight cancer. In ‘mini-cell sabotage’, a mutant bacteria that creates tiny ‘bubbles’ of cell membrane every time it divides. Those tiny ‘bubbles’ – mini-cells – are then filled with toxin and coated with a specific antibody that is particularly attracted to cancer cells. The mini-cells attach themselves (via the antibodies) to the cancer cells, and the cancer cells reflexively eat them, taking in the toxin and dying. The antibody coating also helps the mini-cells avoid being attacked by the immune system. The only part of the experiment that isn’t full of promise is the fact that this technique has only been used on human cancers implanted in mice. Human trials will be underway soon.
Obviously, not all of these are treatments that you can ask for at your local hospital – yet. But research and development on the latest cancer treatment methods is ever-improving, and hope for a cure seems just over the horizon.