Cancer Treatment Options

Overview of how cancer is treated

Surgery

Surgery is used to physically remove or reduce cancer within the body. Surgery is best employed when the cancer manifests as a solid tumor that is well defined and contained in one area.The most common form of surgery is where surgeons use thin and incredibly sharp blades (called scalpels) to cut around healthy tissues in order to precisely remove cancerous tissue. Surgical procedures can also be done without the use of blades and/or needles, such as cryosurgery (where extremely cold gas freezes off cancerous tissues), though these are generally smaller procedures used on smaller and more exposed cancers, like early stage skin cancer. For more information on the surgical process, the following article from the National Cancer Institute goes into great detail about the entirety of the surgical process!

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is a type of treatment in which specially designed drugs attack rapidly dividing cells. Since cancer cells are not the only rapidly dividing cells in the body, chemotherapy often comes with significant side effects. For example, in order to constantly grow hair, the cells that make up the hair follicle must be rapidly dividing. While also attacking rapidly dividing cancer cells, chemotherapy will also often attack these rapidly dividing hair cells, causing the infamous loss of hair associated with cancer treatment. However, the side effects of chemotherapy include, but are not limited to:

• Nausea/vomiting
• Dizziness
• Exhaustion
• Loss of appetite
• Greater risk of developing other cancers
• Diarrhea or constipation
• Low blood cell counts
• Sore mouth/throat

Radiation

Radiation, also called radiotherapy, is often used in conjunction with other treatments. Radiation treatment involves killing cancer cells using high frequency beams of energy, usually in the form of X-rays (however, other forms exist, such as proton therapy). Generally, radiation therapy is used to ensure that no cancer cells remain in the target location. For example, if a patient just had a lumpectomy to remove breast cancer, radiation would be administered in order to make sure that there were no remaining cancer cells within the breast tissue.

However, radiation therapy is not always used in the fight against cancer. Radiation therapy is generally not used when it will do more harm than good. For example, if your cancer is considered low-risk by your oncologist, radiation therapy might not be used.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a relatively new field of cancer treatment that involves boosting the body’s natural defenses against cancer, essentially ‘training’ immune cells to better target cancer cells. There are a variety of examples of Immunotherapy, including, but not limited to:

• Cancer vaccines
• Adoptive cell transfer
• Tumor-infecting viruses
• Checkpoint inhibitors
• Adjuvants
• Monoclonal Antibodies

As discussed in The Basics of Cancer, cancer cells become a problem when they become undetectable from the immune system. If cancer cells are undetectable from the immune system, they are free to demand all the resources they need while facing no risk of cell death. Thus, immunotherapy acts as a radar for the immune cells, allowing for them to better detect and thus eliminate cancer cells. Because this form of therapy is boosting the body’s natural defences against cancer, it is incredibly effective in destroying cancer.

On a similar note, Gene Therapy modifies your original, mutated / non-functioning genes by introducing new, functional genes to your cells. Essentially, gene-therapy is ‘correcting’ the mutations in your body’s genetic code, restoring the body’s natural functions. Gene therapy typically uses an engineered viral vector (don’t worry, you won’t get sick!) that injects new, functional genes into the DNA of your cells.