CANCER THERAPIES

Radiotherapy or radiation therapy, is a therapy that uses ionizing radiation, to selectively kill malignant cells. It tries to control the reproduction of this cells in the organism. It is used also together with chemotherapy, as part of nuclear medicine techniques able to cure, mitigate and prevent cancer development.

Radiotherapy is considered to be an invasive cancer treatment, that aims to eliminate the cancer cells or control their progression. It debilitates the inmune system, and the dosis received accumulate in the body, curing cancer, but maybe inducing a future cancer.

Ionizing radiation can cure cancer, but it can also provoke it. Some types of cancer, depending on their stage of development requiere radiotherapy as an effective therapy to eliminate carcinogenic cells. The ionizing radiation that is used most often is megavoltage X-rays, but gamma rays and beams of particles such as electrons, protons, neutrons and heavy ions such as carbon are also used.

Chemotherapy is a medical treatment that uses chemical substances that work as anti-cancer drugs, these drugs that are administrated receive the name of chemotherapeutic agents. Chemotherapy can work as a curative therapy or it may work to prolong life and reduce symptoms, becoming a palliative chemotherapy treatment.

It is one of the most expanded cancer therapies, it can be administrated in the hospital, but some types of chemotherapy treatments are orally, and can be taken at home.

Surgery and preventive surgery are necessary to heal and prevent multiple cancers. Surgery can be done with minimal incision, highly robotized performance and fast recovery for the patient.

Preventive surgery is also a very necessary step to minimize risks and improve patients quality of life in the future as to raise patients life expectancy.

Immunotherapy, biological therapy or biotherapy is a non invasive Cancer therapy that treats the disease by activating or suppressing the immune system. The therapies that work on the activation of the inmune system are called activation immunotherapies, while the therapies that suppress or reduce the inmune system are called suppression immunotherapies.

Inmunotherapy is used together with other cancer treatments, to lessen secondary effects of other more aggressive treatments. The use can be prophylactic ( preventive) or therapeutic ( to cure and maintain). This biological treatments rely on different ways of the generation of anti-bodies, and represent one of the most advanced cancer research therapies.

Genetic edition has advanced creating new immunotherapies like CAR-T cells. Chimeric antigen receptor T cells (known as CAR T cells), are T cells that have suffered a precise genetic edition in order to produce artificial T-cells. These cells are able to recognize cancer cells, and target them to destroy them. CAR-T cells work as a living drug, that can be derived from T-cells from the patient or T-cells from a healthy donor, these T-cells are genetically engineered in order to program their activation when in contact with tumors. Genetic edition of CAR-T cells represent a new scientific frontier for cancer fight, but this therapy is still very expensive.

Medical radiocompounds, or radiopharmaceuticals, are a group of drugs containing radioactive isotopes, these radioactive isotopes can be ionic or inert, and are used for designing cancer therapies. Radiopharmacology is dedicated to the research and production of these Medical Radiocompounds, which are mainly used for diagnostic, or as therapeutic agents. This medical family of drugs is designed in laboratories and generates most of the radioactive tracers.

Radioactive tracers or radio tracers are used as a part of Nuclear medicine, to trace biochemical reactions in the body and asses how parts of our bodies and organs are working. Several diagnostic imaging systems such as PET scans, SPECT scans and Technetium scans are part of the most common used radioactive tracers to be able to analyze and treat cancers. The radioactive tracers allows medical staff to obtain essential images of organs state, that will help in designing the future cancer treatment. Some of the radioactive isotopes used in these tests decay in few hours, and the body will not accumulate this substances.