Although still in development, the following cancer treatments may make a difference in the future. Cancer is one of the essential illnesses in the world. It’s high mortality, and resistance to conventional treatments have encouraged the appearance of alternative therapies.
Almost all of these new strategies are still in the development stage, but perhaps one day, they will become a reality. Some of the most cutting-edge cancer treatments are summarized below.
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1. Nanorobots Against Cancer
This technology began to investigate in 2014. It consists of the development of tiny robots whose main function is to roam the body in search of cancer cells. Once these have located, the nanorobots administer the drugs that they contain inside.
The benefit of this technology is evident since it ensures that only the altered cells receive the treatment, massively reducing the adverse reactions caused by current chemotherapy.
2. Immunotherapy
Immunotherapy used to treat cancer is a relatively modern and still evolving strategy. It considered as one of the most advanced cancer treatments. Eureka has realized its power and is developing innovative immunotherapies against solid tumors using cutting-edge technology platforms, E-ALPHA® and ARTEMIS®.
For Eureka’s T-cell therapy the patient’s T cells are collected in a process similar to a blood draw. Those T cells are then engineered to target and kill the patient’s cancer cells. The engineered T cells are then infused back into the patient to fight their cancer.
3. Use of Viruses Against Cancer
Viruses are particles that are not consider as living beings because to survive, and they need to use the cellular machinery of another organism to reproduce.
The so-called oncolytic viruses are a novel strategy aimed at fighting cancer. This technique attempts to modify the viral composition so that they only affect tumor cells. In this way, when the virus enters the tumor cells, it will replicate inside it until it destroys it. With this therapy, a selective destruction of the tumor would achieve. However, this type of treatment is still in the experimentation phase, and there is still much to investigate.
4. Use of Bacteria Against Cancer
Like viruses, bacteria can also use to treat cancer. This is because it is relatively easy to manipulate your DNA. In this way, bacteria produced to produce certain substances capable of destroying tumor cells, further increasing the efficiency of the immune system.
Bacteria can also act as vectors for the aforementioned oncolytic viruses, their work being essential and very diverse in this type of experimental therapy.
5. Radioimmunotherapy
Another of the therapies currently used against cancer is radiation therapy. And it is that radiation is usually very effective for the elimination of tumor cells.
However, there is a problem with this type of therapy since the same radiation that can destroy the tumor also affects the surrounding healthy tissues, altering them.
The radioimmunotherapy is the administration of an antibody against antigens characteristic of the tumor, which will bound a radioactive substance. This fact confers selectivity to the radiation emitted, making it only affect cancer cells.
6. Stem Cells
The usage of stem cells has allowed us to develop another perspective in cancer treatment. Stem cells are cells with particular characteristics since they have a high capacity for division. They can also differentiate later in any type of cell in the body.
What does this mean? Well, they can act as a wild card and, depending on the stimuli applied, transform into cells of the pancreas, the heart or any other organ. Stem cell administration allows us to achieve high doses of chemotherapy without running the risk of destroying the rest of the body’s cells.
Stem cell transplants are used mainly in patients with leukemias or lymphomas, constituting an indirect route of treatment.
