MI Unit 3:

Types of Cancer treatments:

Simple definition:

General description of the treatment:

General description of when it is commonly used:

Reasons this treatment might be recommended:

Possible side effects of the treatment:

Surgery

Removal of the tumor and surrounding tissue during an operation

Removes all or some of the cancerous tissue after diagnosis.

Used for solid cancers like bone marrow, skin cancer, and breast cancer. As it is a local treatment- only treats the part of the body that contains the solid cancer tumors than are contained in one area

To ease cancer symptoms caused by tumors creating pain or pressure

Bleeding, blood clots, damage to nearby tissues, drug reactions, damage to other organs, pain, infections, and slow recovery of other body functions

Chemo-

therapy

Uses drugs to kill cancer cells

Relies on powerful chemicals that target and kill fast-growing cells in your body to destroy them

Can destroy all cancer cells in the body, prevent cancer from spreading, and/or ease cancer symptoms caused by tumors creating pain or pressure

To destroy fast-growing cancer cells and to prevent recurrence

Tiredness, nausea, hair loss and blood clotting problems.

Radiation therapy

Uses high doses of radiation to kill cancer cells

Makes small breaks in the DNA inside of the exposed cells. These breaks keep cancer cells from growing and dividing. Treatment can take days or weeks to start causing cancer cells to die, and cells continue to die long after treatment is over

Local treatment, used to ease cancer symptoms caused by tumors. Often used in combination with other treatments, such as surgery and chemo, to ensure that all of the cancerous cells are removed

To kill or shrink tumors, relieve symptoms, or use in a combination with other cancer treatments to make them more effective

Depends on the part of the body being treated by common side effects are fatigue, hair loss, and skin changes

Immuno-therapy

Takes advantage of the body’s own immune system to fight cancer cells

Teaching the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells more accurately. Or attempting to supplement a patient’s immune system with cell proteins that boost its power to destroy cancer cells

Stimulating, or boosting, the natural defenses of your immune system so it works harder or smarter to find and attack cancer cells. Or

making substances in a lab that are just like immune system components and using them to help restore or improve how your immune system works to find and attack cancer cells

Strengthen the natural immune system to fight against cancer

Fever, tiredness

nausea, vomiting,

muscle aches,

pain, skin rashes,

shortness of breath,

headaches, swelling,

hormone changes,

inflammation (redness and swelling)

Targeted therapy

Used to prevent cancer from growing and spreading

Targeted therapy drugs are developed specifically to target certain parts of the cell and the signals that are needed for a cancer to develop and keep growing

Some targeted therapies block the enzymes that signal cancer cells to grow, whereas others induce apoptosis, or cell death, in cancer cells.

Chosen for patients with specific cancers whose tumors have the specific gene mutation that codes for the target

Skin changes: rash, dry skin, itching, hand-foot syndrome, and red sore cuticles (the areas around the nails)

Hormone therapy

Used to stop or slow the growth of cancer cells that use hormones to grow, such as prostate and breast cancers

Used to slow the growth of cancer, lessen the chance that cancer will return

Two types of hormone therapy for cancer treatment: those that block the body’s ability to produce the hormones associated with the cancer and those that interfere with how these hormones behave in the body.

Reduce or prevent symptoms in patients with prostate cancer who are unable to have surgery or radiation therapy

Blood clots,

brittle bones,

eyesight changes,

increased cardiovascular risks,

memory and mood problems, and weight gain

Stem cell transplant

Restore the blood-forming stem cells in people who have had theirs destroyed by cancer treatments

Uses very high doses of chemo and radiation therapy to kill cancer then new stem cells restore bone marrow

Patients receive healthy blood-forming stem cells that travel to the bone marrow and produce new blood cells. The stem cells either come from the patient’s own stem cells that were removed prior to treatment, or from a matching donor.

In patients with multiple myeloma or some types of leukemia, donor stem cells from a transplant can actually help fight cancer by attacking any cancer cells that remain in the body after the high-dose treatments

Infection risk, fatigue, organ damage, bleeding, anemia, and graft-versus-host disease

Precision medicine

Disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle of each person

Precision medicine allows doctors to select treatments that are most likely to help patients, based on a genetic understanding of the patient and their cancer

Patients will receive drugs that their tumors are most likely to respond to, and that their bodies are able to metabolize effectively

To offer a more individualized treatment plan 

Depends on the drug prescribed, however, common side effects are: fatigue, gastrointestinal issues (nausea, diarrhea), skin reactions, and changes in blood pressure