Targeted tumor therapy, a new approach to tumor treatment

Everyone knows that tumors are extremely harmful to the human body. Tumor cells will devour normal functional cells of the human body and attack the body's physiological defense system, thus causing the body's immune system to collapse. Among the current treatments for liver tumors, chemotherapy and drug therapy are common, but now a new method called "molecular targeted therapy" has been introduced.

1: Traditional drug treatment, namely chemotherapy, sometimes fails to distinguish between enemy and foe and cannot accurately aim at the target. It is like a cluster bomb. While killing cancer cells, it also causes certain damage to normal tissues, sometimes causing some serious side effects.

2: Targeted therapy is to design corresponding therapeutic drugs at the cellular and molecular level, targeting the already identified carcinogenic sites. When the drugs enter the body, they will specifically select the carcinogenic sites to bind and act, causing the specific death of tumor cells.

3: Molecular targeted drug therapy is a new treatment method in recent years. Because of its characteristics of highly selectively killing tumor cells without killing or only slightly damaging normal cells, good safety and tolerance, and relatively small toxic side effects, many patients regard it as a ray of hope for the treatment of lung cancer. However, precisely because targeted therapy is designed to attack specific target molecules, it is necessary to find a suitable target to exert its therapeutic effect. Whether the appropriate "target" can be found in individual patients and whether the growth of tumors can be controlled after adoption varies from person to person and from target to target.

1: A large number of studies and medical practices have shown that only some cancer patients are suitable for targeted therapy. Before patients receive targeted therapy, they generally need to undergo molecular target testing.

2: For many molecular targeted drugs, if no clear molecular target is found, the use of targeted drugs is generally useless, which is not only a waste of money but also delays treatment.

3: "The efficacy of molecular targeted drug therapy varies for patients with different clinical conditions. The determination of individualized treatment plans for non-small cell lung cancer depends on the results of gene mutation detection, so that targeted drugs can find appropriate targets and fully exert their therapeutic effects." Experts said that studies have found that the EGFR gene mutation rate is very high in women, adenocarcinoma, non-smokers, and Asian patients with non-small cell lung cancer, especially in Asian patients, where the EGFR gene mutation rate is 30% to 40%, higher than the 10% to 15% of European patients. Because of their high sensitivity to tyrosine kinase inhibitors, these patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer can choose specific targeted drug treatment at the early stage of diagnosis to maximize the treatment effect.

1: It is worth noting that many targeted drugs need to be used in combination with traditional chemotherapy drugs to achieve the best therapeutic effect. However, some cancer patients can also be treated with targeted drugs alone without having to undergo chemotherapy with more obvious toxic and side effects first.

2: Among the targeted drugs that have been developed so far, a few have outstanding efficacy, but the efficacy of most drugs alone is basically around 10%~15%, and their effect on extending the patient's survival is also limited.

In order to achieve the desired effect, currently targeted drugs are often used in combination with chemotherapy drugs or endocrine drugs in clinical practice. In addition, in order to block different conduction pathways, the combination of multiple targeted drugs is also a current research hotspot.