Traditional strategies used to treat or "cure" cancer primarily include surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Other common methods are hormonal therapy, targeted therapy, and immunotherapy.
- Surgery is often used to remove the cancerous tumor and some surrounding tissue, most effective at early stages of cancer.
- Chemotherapy involves using medicines to kill cancer cells, but it can also harm healthy cells, especially those rapidly dividing. Chemotherapy drugs may be given orally or intravenously.
- Radiation therapy uses high-energy particles or x-rays to kill cancer cells. It targets rapidly dividing cells but can also harm normal cells and tissues.
- Hormonal therapy is used for cancers fueled by hormones, like breast or prostate cancer, by blocking the body's natural hormone production or function.
- Targeted therapy attacks specific molecules involved in cancer cell growth, aiming to minimize damage to normal cells.
- Immunotherapy boosts or aids the immune system to fight cancer cells more effectively.
Downfalls of these traditional treatments include:
- Surgery may not completely remove all cancer cells due to tumor heterogeneity, leading to possible recurrence.
- Chemotherapy faces major challenges such as drug resistance and side effects that damage healthy cells like those in the digestive tract and bone marrow. It can also have limited specificity and cause rapid drug metabolism issues.
- Radiation therapy can harm normal cells, has precision limitations, and access to advanced radiation therapy techniques is sometimes limited.
- Hormonal therapies may lose effectiveness due to resistance mechanisms, and they can impact the patient’s quality of life.
- Conventional therapies often fail to target cancer stem cells effectively, which may cause tumor recurrence after treatment discontinuation.
- Additionally, traditional therapies can have significant toxicities and side effects that impact patient health and quality of life.
In summary, while traditional cancer treatments have been refined over time and remain the cornerstone of cancer therapy, their limitations include toxicity, incomplete elimination of cancer cells, development of drug resistance, and side effects on normal tissues, which often complicate treatment outcomes.