• Question: what is the most effective way of combating a tumor?

    Asked by anon-328011 on 15 Jun 2022.
    • Photo: Karin Purshouse

      Karin Purshouse answered on 15 Jun 2022: last edited 15 Jun 2022 9:53 pm

      Thanks for your question! So it really depends on what type of cancer it is, how advanced it is and, depending on the cancer, sometimes we test for particular molecular markers or genetic tests. Ideally a cancer is diagnosed early enough that it can be removed, although we still sometimes give anti cancer treatment afterwards as a sort of back-up in case any leftover cancer cells that we can’t see by eye might be lurking around. That’s a scenario where we hope we have truly beaten cancer.

      Anticancer treatment might be chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or targeted therapy – which is where its a drug specific to the biology of that cancer. Sometimes radiotherapy can also be used. And which one of these, and which combination, depends on what cancer, where and how advanced. The way we have worked out what treatments work, and which ones don’t, is by clinical trials. That’s where patients agree to either take a new treatment or the current best option (ideally assigned at random), and see what works best. So really, all our cancer treatments now are thanks to patients who have participated in clinical trials.

      So it’s not an easy question to answer, but hopefully explains the sorts of things that we think about when trying to tackle cancer!

    • Photo: Tammy Piper

      Tammy Piper answered on 16 Jun 2022:

      I work in breast cancer research and these tumours are treated with either chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy or surgery depending on the tumour type.

      If the tumour is small and in-situ (I.e not spreading) then it is usually treated with just surgery and the patient monitored for a number of years afterwards.

      If it is positive for certain hormone growth receptors (oestrogen and/or progesterone), then the patient may have surgery and anti-hormone treatment – this causes any remaining tumour cells to shrink and die off.

      Chemotherpay may also be used depending on if the tumour has spread and radiotherapy is usually used in the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes in the arm pit.

    • Photo: Maria Peiris Pages

      Maria Peiris Pages answered on 16 Jun 2022:

      This is a very difficult question to answer! Ideally you want to use a way that targets cancer cells and doesn’t harm the healthy cells of your body. Most chemotherapeuticals are acting this way. We take advantage of the particular characteristics that cancer cells have and make them different from healthy cells to target them. They have uncontrolled proliferation, so some chemotherapy drugs aim at inhibiting proliferation. They produce proteins that dampen the immune system, so checkpoint inhibitors target these proteins that normally dampen the immune response, so the immune system will attack cancer cells…

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