Oncology Drug Treatment

A modality using drugs with a different mechanism of action to attack cancer cells.
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What are the drugs that can treat cancers?

Traditionally speaking, we all know chemotherapy can treat cancers. With the recent advances in drug development, oncology drugs are not limited to chemotherapy. Target therapy and immunotherapy are also commonly used in cancer treatment nowadays. Oncology drugs can be used as a single agent or in combination to achieve the best result. It can be given orally or intravenously. Some of the newer formulations also allow oncology drugs to be given subcutaneously. Other routes of administration, e.g. intrathecal or intra-vesical, are also possible.

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Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy opens a new page of oncology treatment. Upon the discovery of programmed cell death (PD) receptors, anti-PD drugs are widely used in different kinds of tumors. Because of its unique mechanism of action, its clinical application and side effect profile is also different from chemotherapy and target therapy. Tumors that are not responsive to traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy can possibly be treated with immunotherapy alone or with a combination of chemotherapy. It definitely offers hope to cancer patients.

Targeted therapy

Targeted therapy is more selective compare to chemotherapy. It targets a particular receptor or a particular site of a receptor instead of inhibiting cell growth non-selectively. The side effect of targeted therapy is a lot milder than chemotherapy. It, however, carries a unique set of side effects which are usually less fatal. Because targeted therapy is only active on a particular receptor, its clinical application is also limited to patients with a particular mutation. Molecular tests to look for the mutation is usually necessary.
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Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy refers to cytotoxic drugs which can inhibit cell growth or cause direct cell death. Although cytotoxic chemotherapy drugs cause more side effects, they still serve the backbone of the oncology drug treatment. It can be given before surgery to support better results with surgery, given after chemotherapy as adjuvant treatment or control the tumor growth in a metastatic setting.