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Dr André Oliveira, an oncologist working with the HPA Health Group, sheds some light on the latest treatments that can be applied to cancer patients, such as immunotherapy and targeted therapy.

Immunotherapy

The HPA Health Group is prepared to support patients during every phase of their lives, including the most difficult ones. With this in mind, HPA Health Group has invested in new therapies to save as many patients as possible with less toxicity. Immunology is one of the new therapies that has shown very good results.

Immunotherapy is a recent treatment that came out (with less toxicity) in 2016 and changed the natural course of some severe diseases such as metastatic melanoma and lung cancer, because “it allows us to use our own immune system to attack cancer cells," he explained.

"Some cancer cells have a mechanism to block the action of our immune system. Despite having highly strange aspects, the immune system does not recognise them and does nothing about them", Dr André Oliveira added.

What these new immunotherapy molecules do is: "they allow us to break this lack of recognition and make these cells more easily recognised by the immune system, so that the immune system attacks them effectively”.

One of the success stories of these therapies can be seen in lung cancer. “Some lung cancers in 2015 had very low survival rates of about 6/9 months and now we can keep the disease under control or eventually get rid of the cancer in some specific cases, which was previously impossible. In addition, we can do the same with melanoma and sometimes with kidney cancer."

Targeted therapies

In addition, HPA Health Group has also been investing in cancer-targeted therapies. These are therapies where, with advances in genetics, we can find what causes some cancers to develop. Then we can find blockers for these tumours, specific drugs that stop the tumour progressing and even cause it to regress.

"For some of these genes, we have specific drugs and the more targeted the drugs are for that problem, the higher the response rates will be. Also, these are treatments that have less toxicity," he said.

Side effects

All treatments can come with side effects, even these latest therapies. They are not vitamins, they are still medical drugs, but with less toxicity than those we are used to in cancer treatment, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

"Regarding targeted therapies, there is always some toxicity, but nothing compared to the toxicities that exist in chemotherapy. In the risk-benefit ratio, these therapies have a greater benefit," he pointed out.

For example, "immunotherapy can cause non-specific inflammatory problems such as hyperthyroidism, colitis and diarrhea. Although these are less frequent toxicities than those that exist with chemotherapy, they still exist," Dr André Oliveira said.

Science going further

As for how these drugs are administered, he said it will always depend on the case, but although many require hospital visits, in the future the aim is for people to start doing these from home with as much comfort as possible.

However, it is important to note that not all patients can get these treatments - it is always a decision made by the medical team. In this regard, the doctor explained: "two people on a train with the same cancer do not have the same disease because even the same cancer can develop very differently in two different bodies”.

For further information, please visit https://www.grupohpa.com/en/

Paula Martins is a fully qualified journalist, who finds writing a means of self-expression. She studied Journalism and Communication at University of Coimbra and recently Law in the Algarve. Press card: 8252

Paula Martins