Cancer is generally treated with a combination of therapies. These can include surgical resection, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and immunotherapy

Question

The type of malignancy and staging of the disease will, in part, determine the types of therapies that are prescribed. Define and describe each of these therapies. Briefly describe the mechanism for each. In general, how do they act to treat a malignancy?

Answer 1

Surgical resection: Removal of part of an organ or a structure in an attempt to remove the malignancy from the body.
Radiation therapy:
• Therapeutic radiation is the use of electromagnetic energy, which can destroy rapidly proliferating cells.
• It alters DNA enough to "brake" the cell cycle.
• It reduces tumor size and is often used in conjunction with other therapies.
Chemotherapy:
• Interrupts cell DNA, RNA, or protein synthesis of the cell cycle.
• Different types of drugs interrupt cell proliferation at different stages.
• It is common therapy to use a combination of drugs, which will enhance the effectiveness of treatment and minimize overall toxicity.
Immunotherapy:
• Also called biological therapy and biotherapy
• Medications that will stimulate your immune system and medications that contain components of the immune system such as interleukin or interferon