New treatment increases hope of fighting the most aggressive breast cancer
self-examination and mammography Regular screenings are the best tool we have today for fighting breast cancer, the most common type of tumor in women. It is very important to catch him in time.
Another major advance has occurred in the treatment of localized disease. Personalization of the tumor and ways to combat it have made great progress, and today breast cancer without metastases has a frequency 99% survival rate after 5 years.
Treatment is more effective even for the most aggressive tumors with the worst prognosis. We’ll talk about the latter. It’s about triple negative breast cancer located The experimental treatment, which is already in the final stages of clinical trials, has demonstrated high effectiveness.
How the new treatment improves
The new approach is to add immunotherapy treatmentwhich is used in conjunction with chemotherapy both before and after surgery to remove the tumor.
They have proven that this combination helps better control of the disease. There are more treatment options and less risk of relapse. Tests were carried out with the participation 1174 patients this type of cancer. The new approach was applied to one group and the traditional approach was maintained to the other.
The results are very obvious. After six years After treatment it turned out:A significant improvement in survival global“,” note the authors of the study, presented in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prestigious scientific journals.
The results represent 5% more patients were cured. The survival rate for this triple negative breast cancer ranges from 81.7% to 86.6%.
What does this treatment consist of?
This type of triple negative cancer is 15% of all breast cancer cases diagnosed. It easily spreads to the lymph nodes and makes it difficult to treat. The study was conducted on stage 1 and 2 cancers, which are the most common. earlier phases diseases.
Researchers suggest giving type of immunotherapypermbrolizumab. It’s about monoclonal antibodies. These antibodies are man-made proteins that mimic our own antibodies. And they act the same: indicate where malignant cells are located.
These monoclonal antibodies are made by fusing our defense cells (B cells) with tumor cells.
The difference between immunotherapy and other treatments is that it does not involve chemicals that damage tumor cells. A method is given by which the immune system itself can detect the tumor and attack it. Let them be our defense that destroys cancer cells.
To date, there is no immunotherapy treatment that is one hundred percent effective. almost everything They are used together with chemotherapy.. So in these cancer cases, scientists have proposed a combination of both.
Cases when immunotherapy is ineffective
One challenge that immunotherapy still faces is a patient who does not always respond in the same way. There are many types of cancer for which it is not effective.
One of the biggest challenges doctors face is that a tumor, especially one that starts in an organ such as the breast, has time to organize itself better to protect itself. IN lymphomas or leukemias (blood and lymph cancer) the results of immunotherapy are much more promising.
However, progress is also being made on this issue. Now created special test which allows us to see whether a patient will respond to immunotherapy treatment or whether it will be futile.
This is a test that analyzes immune system potential patient and other factors, and it will be very useful for doctors to make treatment decisions.