The bane of conventional Chemotherapy and Radiation is the side effects as a lot of normal tissues also face the brunt of the therapy. Imagine a situation wherein only the cancer cells are eliminated, and all the normal cells are spared. This is Precision Oncology. Each cancer is unique, and it is also unique from person to person.
What’s more, even in a person, cancer can keep changing and evolving. Identifying each of these unique changes as they unfold is Precision Diagnostics. And planning targeted therapy specific to these evolving cancer cells is Precision Therapeutics in Oncology. Cancer cells have specific receptors on their cell surface, which are not there in normal cells, and we call them as biomarkers. Cancer cells are also circulating in the blood, and some of the breakdown products of the cells like nucleic acids and DNA strands are also in circulation. We now detect all these (circulating tumor DNA) by just a blood sample called Liquid Biopsy. Liquid biopsies are used to stratify risk and monitor progress.
Examples for biomarkers are Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (HER2) in breast cancer and PD-L1 in Lung Cancer, and these are very suitable targets for drugs. The drugs attach themselves to these biomarkers and then annihilate the cancer cells, and this is called Precision Targeted Therapy. Immunotherapy is the use of drugs which enhances the body’s own defense mechanism, the T Cells, to fight against cancer. Then there is the CRISPR gene editing system which is used to detect and replace the defective T cell Receptors. Precision Radiotherapy likewise targets only the tumor targets sparing the normal cells. The myriad of different advanced technologies has now brought personalized care in Oncology with minimal side effects.
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