What is targeted therapy

With the rapid development of society and technology, many diseases that were originally incurable have been treated more effectively. The most obvious of these is the treatment of cancer. Nowadays, more and more people are suffering from cancer. This disease used to be only seen on TV, but now it seems that we always hear about someone getting cancer. Fortunately, this is no longer the era when people are afraid of cancer. Cancer can be treated better. Targeted therapy is this method. Let’s learn about what targeted therapy is.

Targeted drugs, a method of interventional treatment, are currently the most advanced drugs for treating cancer. The biggest difference between them and traditional drugs lies in their mechanism of action. Conventional chemotherapy drugs work by toxicating cells. Since they cannot accurately identify tumor cells, they may harm normal cells while killing tumor cells. This is the root cause of the side effects of chemotherapy drugs. Targeted drugs are developed for tumor genes. They can recognize characteristic sites on tumor cells that are determined by genes unique to tumor cells. By binding to them (or other similar mechanisms), they block the signal transduction pathways in tumor cells that control cell growth and proliferation, thereby killing tumor cells and preventing their proliferation. Due to these characteristics, targeted drugs are not only effective, but also have much fewer side effects than conventional chemotherapy methods. Treatment using targeted drugs is called "targeted therapy."

In addition to conventional surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, biological therapy and traditional Chinese medicine treatment, different targeted therapy technologies can be used for targeted treatment according to the different targets of tumors at the organ tissue and molecular levels. Local lesion targets can be treated with local targeted ablation therapy, targeted radiotherapy, targeted internal irradiation therapy with radioactive particle implantation, high-energy focused ultrasound therapy, intravascular intervention therapy and local drug injection.

The target of molecular targeted therapy is the malignant phenotype molecules of tumor cells, acting on specific cell receptors, signal transduction channels and other channels that promote tumor growth and survival, the regulation of angiogenesis and cell cycle, to achieve anti-tumor effects by inhibiting tumor cell growth or promoting apoptosis. Different from traditional cytotoxic chemotherapy, tumor molecular targeted therapy has specific anti-tumor effects and significantly reduced toxicity, opening up a new field of tumor chemotherapy.