By Sarah Murnal
With cancer incidence predicted to increase by 50 per cent over the next 20 years, it makes sense to know a little bit more about the current treatments and developments on the horizon.
With around 200 different types of cancer affecting 4 out of 10 people at some point in their lives, finding an effective treatment for an individual’s particular cancer is no mean feat. Oral cancer has a higher proportion of deaths per number of cases than breast cancer, cervical cancer and skin melanoma and there has been little improvement in survival rates over the past 30 years. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are now widely known as treatments for some forms of the disease, but little is known about the other treatments on offer and even less about cancer treatments in development.
Current treatments
There are many treatments currently available to treat different types of cancers. In summary, these include:
Biological therapy
This is where proteins produced by the body stimulate the body’s own defence mechanism to fight cancer cells
Haematopoietic growth factors
Proteins produced naturally in the body stimulate the bone marrow to make the different types of blood cells – e.g. white or red blood cells – to help the body fight infection