Researchers have been trying hard to find innovative methods professional treatment in treating the deadly cancer disease. They have successfully introduced multiple treatment methods to treat different cancer types at different stages.
These treatments include surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and the latest techniques, such as interventional radiology and immunotherapy. While much information is readily available on chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and surgery, much is unknown about the other two. This is because these treatments came into existence recently and are considered the latest cancer treatment.
Consult the best oncologist in Gurgaon to know in detail about these latest treatments and their side effects. Here’s some general information that will help you gain basic knowledge about the treatment procedures and their possible side effects on the body.
Latest Cancer Treatments:
Interventional radiology and immunotherapy are the latest cancer treatments that have proved their effectiveness on cancer patients. Here’s all that you need to know about these treatments.
What Is Interventional Radiology?
With the help of this method, it has become possible to treat and diagnose cancer without needing any major surgery. To perform this treatment, the doctor screens the body with imaging tests such as MRIs, CT scans, and ultrasonography.
This diagnosing step is followed by the stage of action, where the doctor uses necessary tools like needles and tubes to provide treatment in the area where the cancer cells have affected the smooth functioning of your organ. The doctor puts these tools inside the patient’s body through tiny cuts, which are extremely small and negligible.
How Does Interventional Radiology Help The Cancer Patients?
With the innovation of interventional radiology, the best breast cancer doctors can now treat the exact area without the need for major surgeries and loss of blood. It is also known for reducing the side effects after the cancer treatment as cancer-killing therapies like radioactive medicines and chemo can be put directly into the tumour or the cancer cells.
Moreover, the cancer cells can be destroyed by heating them with electric currents or radio waves. Interventional radiology also paves the way for the doctor to cut off the blood flow toward the tumour or cancer cell, eventually causing their destruction. This kind of treatment can also reduce various side effects like blood clotting and the building up of fluid inside the body.
What Are The Benefits Of Interventional Radiology?
One of the main side effects of cancer treatment is that with solid therapies like chemo or internal radiation, your body’s healthy cells are also affected as it passes through your whole body to destroy the particular place where the cancer cells reside. But with this method, doctors get to treat the tumour directly, and this will safeguard the healthy cells around them.
What Is Immunotherapy?
Immunotherapy is a cancer treatment that assists the immune system in combating cancer. Therefore it can be easily understood that it is a biological therapy that uses substances from living organisms to treat cancer effectively.
How Is The Procedure Beneficial For Cancer Treatments?
The normal function of the immune system inside our body is to detect abnormal cells and destroy them before they affect the body. Therefore the immune system is also known for preventing the growth of numerous cancer cells. Most often, immune cells are found around or in the tumour.
These cells are known as tumour infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) which signals that the body’s immune system responds to the tumour. Tumours containing TILs are known to be better for the patient than the ones lacking them. However, even though the system prevents the steady growth of cancer cells, these often undergo genetic changes that make them invisible to the immune system.
The cancer cells might also cause a change to the normal cells surrounding the tumour so that their interference with the immune system’s reaction to cancer cells becomes strong. This is where immunotherapy assists the immune system in putting up a brave fight against cancer.
Various Types of Immunotherapy That Have Proved Beneficial In Treating Cancer:
Immunotherapy can be used in various types to treat cancer patients, depending on the stage and state of the cancer. Below are several types of immunotherapy that have been introduced in the oeuvre of oncology in recent times:
T-cell Transfer Therapy:
This therapy helps the patients boost the T-cells’ ability naturally to combat cancer. The procedure includes taking some immune cells from the tumour which are most active against cancer. These selected cells are then changed to attack the cancer cells better. The process is performed in the laboratory, where the cells are made to grow in large batches and put into the body with the help of a needle in a vein.
Monoclonal Antibodies:
This is another type of immunotherapy where these monoclonal antibodies, immune system proteins, are manufactured in the laboratory and mainly designed to target cancer cells. They assist in finding and marking cancer cells so that the immune system can destroy them.
Immune System Modulation:
This treatment enhances the body’s immune response against cancer cells. These agents are known for affecting the immune system or some specific parts.
Immune Checkpoint Inhibition:
The immune system comes with immune Checkpoints and restricts the immune responses from being strong. Immune Checkpoints inhibitors are a kind of drug used to block these checkpoints, thereby allowing the immune cells to respond strongly against cancer cells.
Final Thoughts:
Both these new cancer treatment methods have created quite a stir in the oeuvre of oncology by helping cancer patients fight against the disease by boosting their immunity or by treating the specific area of the tumour.
Although this doesn’t include the surgery process or the side effects of chemotherapy, they can act against or destroy the healthy cells and tissues in the body. Before opting for any of these treatments, you must consult an oncologist in Gurgaon to know about these treatments in detail.
