3.3 and 3.4 Medical Intervention Review (PLTW)

This is an overview of all the terms and information within this unit. Goodluck on your test and let me know if i should add anything else! :)

Biofeedback Therapy

The technique of making unconscious or involuntary bodily processes perceptible to the senses in order to manipulate them by conscious mental control

Surgery

• Cancer is removed/cut out from the body

• Used for local and fully developed cancer

• Pain/Tenderness, Infection

Chemotherapy

- A combination of specific drugs are used to kill off cells that have a higher rate of division
**This not only weakens and kills cancer cells but healthy cells (blood cells, intestinal cells, hair cells)
- Used for a wide variety of cancers (both blood and localized)
- Extreme fatigue, hair loss, nausea

Radiation Therapy

- High amounts of laser or physical radiation
- Mainly used for localized tumors and cancer tissue
- Either external beam or solid/liquid implant
- Extreme fatigue, confusion

Immunotherapy

- Trains your immune system to target and destroy cancer cells
- Much less common, usually used if not responsive to other treatments
- Fever, chills, weakness/fatigue, headaches

Metastasis

The spread of a disease-producing agent (such as cancer cells or bacteria) from the initial pr primary site of disease to another part of the body.

Targeted Therapy

• Targeting specific cancer genes or proteins

• Description: Drugs designed to target specific weaknesses within cancer cells

• Common usage: is with specific genetic mutations

• Reasons for recommendation: to step growth pathways without damaging as many healthy cells

• Possible side effects: Diarrhea, liver problems, skin issues, rash, and redness

Hormone Therapy

Blocking hormones that help cancer grow

• Description: Medicine that’s used to stop or slow the growth of hormone-sensitive tumors

• Common Usage: Breast, prostate, and uterine cancers

• Reasons for Recommendation: Hormone-dependent cancer growth

• Possible side effects: Hot flashes, loss of libido bone density loss

Stem Cell transplant

Replacing diseased blood-forming cells

• Description: Replacing damaged bone marrow with healthy stem cells

• Common usage: blood cancers (leukemia lymphoma)

• Reasons for Recommendation: High-dose chemotherapy, or severe marrow dysfunction

• Possible Side effects: Infection, GVHD (Graft Versus-host disease), bleeding

Precision medicine

Personalized treatment based on genetics

Description: Using a patient’s genetic profile (biomarker testing) to tailor treatment

Common usage: When traditional therapies fail to customize care

Reasons for recommendation: To ensure the most effective personalized drug is selected

Possible side effects: Varies based on the personalized treatment selected

involuntary processes

Biological processes within the body that you don’t control or exert without conscious thought.

• Heartbeat: Contraction and relaxation of the heart muscle that pumps blood through the body

• Breathing: The process of inhaling and exhaling air through the lungs to supply blood with oxygen and remove carbon dioxide

• Digestion: The breakdown of food into smaller components that can be absorbed in response to stimuli

Belly breathing

Take slow, deep breaths that engage the diaphragm rather than the chest. Placing a hand on the abdomen, you ensure the belly rises with inhalation and falls. This helps with slowing down the heart rate and stabilizes blood pressure

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Tense and relax specific muscle groups throughout the body (typically head to toe or vice versa). Helps people recognize the physical sensation of tension and learn how to effectively release it. To achieve a deeper state of physical relaxation.

Guided Imagery

Focusing the imagination on peaceful and calming mental images (e.g., beach forest) using sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Dividing mental breaks from stressors and prompting an emotional calm state.

ProstheSIS

An artificial device used to replace or augment a missing or impaired part of the body

ProtheTIST

A professional who makes and fits prostheses, artificial devices designed to replace or augment a missing or impaired part of the body

Occupational therapy

Helps patients across the lifespan develop, recover, or maintain the daily living and work skills needed to live independently, treating those with physical, mental, or developmental disabilities

Physical therapy

The treatment of a disease by physical and mechanical means (such as a massages, regulated exercise, water, light, and electricity

Nanomedicine

Area of biochemical research that seeks to use tools from the feild of nanotechnology to improve health

Clinical trail

A scientifically controlled study of the safety and effectiveness of a therapeutic agent (such as a drug or vaccine using consenting human subjects)

• Purpose of clinical trials: Experimental treatments, new combinations of drugs, new approaches to surgery or radiation therapies, better disease prevention, and diagnostic approaches

• Trail 1: Evaluate the safety of the drug. They determine the safe dosage range and identify side effects. This trail only test a small group of people (Fewer than 100)

• Trail 2: Learn more about safety and side effects, sharpen estimates or proper dosage, determine effectiveness. They test a bigger group of people (100-200)

• Trail 3: Determines effectiveness, side effects, test larger groups (1,000-3,000 people)

• Trail 4: Evaluating drug risk, drug benefits, optimal usage

Moncolonal Antibodies

Lab-made proteins that bind to their specific targets (antigens) on cancer cells, flagging them for destruction, and blocking growth signals by receiving toxins directly into the cell.

• Benefits: Highly targeted, fewer side effects than chemotherapy

• Risk: Infusion reactions, “flu-like” symptoms that link to organ toxicity

Immune Checkpoint Inhabitation

Blocks proteins that stop immune cells from attacking cancer effectively, “releasing brakes” on the immune system

• Benefits: durable, long-term responses in advanced cancers

• Risk: Immune-related adverse events, inflammation of healthy organs

Interferons

Signaling proteins (cytokines) produced by host cells moderate the immune system response, fighting viruses and cancer by altering neighboring cells to activate defenses, stimulating immune cells to attack pathogens

• Benefits: Can produce complete long-lasting remission in advanced cancer

• Risk: Flu-like symptoms (fever, fatigue), causes depression, lowers red blood cell count

interleukins

A group of signaling cytokine proteins, primarily produced by white blood cells that regulate the immune system responses, imflammation, cell growth

• Benefits: Can produce complete long-lasting remission in advanced cancer

• Risk: Saves systemic toxicity, capillary leak syndrome

Oncolyticoines Therapy

using genetically modified or natural viruses to selectively infect, replicate within, and destroy cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue

Benefits: Triggers personalized immune responses, causes immunogenic cell death

Risk: Fever/ flue like symtopms, the virus may cause infections if not properly controlled

Cancer Vaccines

Train the immune system to identify and destroy cancer cells

Benefits: Preventive or therapeutic potential, creates immunological memory

Risk: Injection a reaction, fever, and typically requires tumor-specific agents to work

SNPs

Single nucleotide polymorphism with Pone base-pair variation inn the gene sequence

Pharmacogenetics

The study of the interrelation of hereditary constitution and response to drugs

Compare and Contrast B cell & T cells

Key Comparisons:

• Maturation Location: T cells mature in the thymus, while B cells mature in the bone marrow.

• Antigen Recognition: T cells need antigens to be presented by MHC molecules; B cells can recognize surface antigens directly.

• Mechanism: T cells (cytotoxic) act directly on cells; B cells release antibodies that flag and neutralize antigens. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Detailed Differences:

• Function: T-cells fight against infected or cancerous cells. B-cells create antibodies that bind to viruses or toxins to neutralize them.

• Types: T cells include Helper T cells (guide immune response) and Cytotoxic T cells (kill infected cells). B cells differentiate into plasma cells (produce antibodies) and memory B cells.

• Response Timing: B-cells are often associated with the secondary, more rapid immune response, whereas T-cells are crucial for primary recognition.

• Cancer Association: B-cells are more likely to mutate into liquid cancers such as leukemia or lymphoma.

Controlled Clinical Trails

A trail that includes a comparison group (control group) to compare with the experimental groups

Open clinical trials

Both participants and researchers know which treatment is administred

Factoral Clinical Trial

Allows investigators to study effects of two or more independent interventions stimulataneously within the same trial

Orphan Clincal Trail

Study designed to evaluate drugs, biologics or medical devices intended to treat, diagnose, or prevent a rare disease

Crossover Clinical Trial

Each participant serves as their own control. Participants receive a sequence of different treatments. Treatment A is taken for 4 weeks, then a wash period occurs, afterwards treatment b is taken for another 4 weeks

Randomized Clinical Trial

Participants are randomily assigned to either the experimental groups or control groups

What happened during the Nazi Medical Experiments? And what changed?

What happened:

• During World War II, Nazi physicians conducted brutal, unethical experiments on thousands of concentration camp prisoners without consent, focusing on military survival, drug testing, and racial ideology. Prisoners suffered torture, mutilation, and death via high-altitude, freezing, sterilization, and infection experiments.

What changed:

• Nuremberg Code (1947): The trial of 23 doctors and administrators resulted in the "Nuremberg Code," a set of ethical principles that established the absolute necessity of voluntary, informed consent for human experimentation.

• Medical Ethics: The horrific acts forced a global overhaul of medical research standards, prioritizing patient rights and safety over scientific gain.

• Accountability: Only a few practitioners were convicted; seven were sentenced to death, others received prison sentences, while many escaped punishment. [1, 2, 3]

What happened during the Thalidomide Tragedy and what changed?

What happened:

involved a sedative marketed for morning sickness that caused severe birth defects—including phocomelia (malformed limbs)—in over 10,000 children worldwide.

What changed:

• Rigorous Drug Regulation: The tragedy forced governments to move from voluntary reporting to strict licensing, notably the 1968 Medicines Act in the UK.

• Mandatory Testing: Regulatory bodies began requiring that drugs meant for human use must be proven safe, with specific testing on pregnant animals to ensure safety for fetuses.

• FDA Reform: The Kefauver-Harris Amendment of 1962 was passed in the US, requiring manufacturers to prove both safety and effectiveness before marketing.

• Monitoring Side Effects: Systems like the UK’s Yellow Card Scheme were established, allowing doctors to report previously unknown side effects.

• Repurposing: Despite the history, researchers later found that thalidomide is effective for treating multiple myeloma and certain types of leprosy, though it remains one of the most strictly regulated drugs. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

What happened during Beecher’s Article and what changed?

What happened:

The New England Journal of Medicine exposed 22 unethical, published medical studies that severely endangered patients without their consent. This "bombshell" report catalyzed

What changed:

• Mandatory Informed Consent: The article directly led to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) implementing strict guidelines requiring informed consent for all human subject research.

• Creation of IRBs: It prompted the mandatory establishment of Institutional Review Boards to review study protocols for ethical compliance, a system now standard globally.

• The National Research Act (1974): Beecher's work acted as a catalyst, along with the later exposure of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, for the 1974 National Research Act and the subsequent 1979 Belmont Report.

• Shift in Power: The focus shifted from medical paternalism (where doctors decide what is best) to patient autonomy (where patients decide through consent).

• Increased Scrutiny: Research oversight became formal and bureaucratic, moving away from Beecher’s own hope for improved professional "self-scrutiny" among researchers. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

What happened during the Willowbrook and what changed?

What happened during the Public Health Service syphilis Study and what changed?

What happened?

An institution for children with intellectual disabilities that became the center of a national scandal in the early 1970s due to inhumane conditions, abuse, and unethical medical experiments.

What Changed?

• The 1975 Consent Decree: Following a 1972 class-action lawsuit, a federal judge signed a settlement in 1975 forcing New York State to improve conditions and transition residents into community settings.

• Closure: The institution was officially closed in 1987, and the campus was later acquired by the College of Staten Island.

• Deinstitutionalization: The scandal accelerated the movement to move individuals with disabilities out of large institutions and into smaller, community-based group homes.

• Rights for People with Disabilities: The case established that residents of institutions had a constitutional right to be protected from harm. It also helped lead to legal rights for children with disabilities to receive a public education.

• Legal Protections: The outcry influenced the development of Protection and Advocacy (P&A) agencies, now located in all 50 states, to monitor for abuse.

• National Awareness: The scandal helped shift societal perspectives on individuals with disabilities from "hidden" in institutions to integrated members of

How do doctors decide whether or not to use chemotherapy, radiation, or a combo of the two? (There are 3 reasons)

1. The location of the tumor
Is it operable? No? Maybe radiation is the best treatment.
2. The type of tumor
Different types of cancer respond better to radiation, as opposed to chemotherapy, or vice versa.
3. The size of the tumor
This may indicate the degree of advancement or stage of the cancer.

Nanotubes

trying to mark where the mutations are in the DNA

Nanopores

devices that allow your DNA to be read

Nanoshells

absorb head and attach themselves to cancer cells exposed to infrared light, they absorb heat to point of killing a cell

dendrimers

nanodevices that do everything. Allow detection, diagnosis, and killing of cells.

respirocytes

nanomachines designed to operate on the molecular level. They change gasses via molecular sorting rotors, fill with oxygen, and prepare for use