The recent advancements of medical technology has made cancer treatments diverse, hence a patient can opt for other treatments apart from surgery.

Non-surgical treatments tend to be less intrusive and have several advantages.

Want to explore more about the non-surgical treatments for cancer? You’re not alone and in the right place.

In this blog, Karetrip will explain all about the non-surgical options for cancer treatment.

Some Common Non-Surgical Cancer Treatment Options

1. Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy is one of the most popular non-surgical cancer treatments familiar to most people all across the world. This entails the application of substances followed by the elimination of cancerous cells through killing or inhibition of their multiplication. Chemotherapy may be taken in a form of pill, injected into the vein or directly into the affected part of the body depending on the kind of cancer.

How Chemotherapy Works

• Knowing the mechanisms of action of these drugs, it is found that they act on a process of cancer cells that divides rapidly. However, because these drugs can also destroy the normal body cells that divide rapidly it has several side effects which are: hair loss, nausea, fatigue, and higher prone to infections.

Applications

• It can be applied as the primary treatment modality or as an adjuvant to other modalities such as radiation or immunotherapy.
• It may be employed to reduce the size of a tumour with the aim of making it possible for surgery to be done or to kill any remaining cancer cells after surgery.
• It can also be used as a broad-spectrum anti tumor agent and as an adjuvant therapy in treating cancer when standard treatments are no longer effective or in end of life care to assist with pain management for terminal cancer patients.

2. Radiation Therapy

Radiation therapy employs ionising energies to deliver large doses of energy that is capable of destroying cancer cells or to reduce the size of tumours. The radiation therapy affects the DNA of the cancerous cells hence denying them the ability to multiply. This treatment can however be external such as external beam radiation or internal such as brachytherapy, which involves implanting a radioactive source inside or nearby the tumour.

Types of Radiation Therapy

External Beam Radiation Therapy (EBRT): This kind is used most frequently; a beam of radiation is aimed at the cancer from outside the body.

• Brachytherapy: This method entails the use of seeds or sources of radioactivity whereby the seeds or sources are put into or close to the tumour and this makes the delivery of radiation dose high to the tumour and low for the healthy tissue.

Benefits and Challenges

• It is accurate and can be delivered in a manner which avoids harm to the healthy cells and tissues of the body.
• Possible side effects include more general as well as local effects where the cancer is; this may be mouth sores for head and neck cancers, diarrhoea for abdominal cancers, among other effects generally seen with radiotherapy including skin irritation and fatigue.

3. Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a treatment technique that directly engages the body’s immune system against cancer. This is done through a boost of the immune system so that it can easily identify cancer cells that are in the stage of destruction. This approach comprises the following; checkpoint inhibitors, CAR T-cell therapy, and cancer vaccines.

Types of Immunotherapy

• Checkpoint Inhibitors: These drugs inhibit proteins which the cancer cells use to evade the immune system and thus the immune system attacks the cancer.
• CAR T-Cell Therapy: This is done by engineering a patient’s T-cells to improve its ability to identify and destroy cancer cells. It has proven to be very effective, especially on conditions such as blood cancer for example leukaemia and lymphoma.
• Cancer Vaccines: They are made to stimulate an immune response against cancer cells via the use of antigen related to the cancer.

Advantages

• Immunotherapy is effective in some kinds of cancers and helps the body to gain immune response against cancer relapse.

• Compared with chemotherapy and radiation, immunotherapy usually has fewer side effects, but patients may develop side effects from their immune system that affect healthy organs.

4. Targeted Therapy

Targeted therapy comprises drugs that seek out specific molecules involved in cell division of cancerous cells. Thus, while traditional chemotherapy is more generalised in that it kills all rapidly dividing cells, including the patient’s healthy ones, targeted therapy is designed to kill primarily cancer cells.

Types of Targeted Therapy

• Monoclonal Antibodies: Meaning they are man-made molecules which can attach to unique receptors on cancer cells so that the immune system can identify and destroy them.
• Small Molecule Inhibitors: They arrest the functioning of the enzymes, proteins or other molecules which are necessary for growth and division of cancer cells.

Applications

• The targeted drugs are usually applied to several diseases with certain genetic markers, for example, HER2-positive breast cancer or EGFR-mutated lung tuberculosis.
• It can be very helpful but may prove to have some resistance after sometime hence has to be used in conjunction with other forms of

Challenges

• Personal therapy is considered to have less harm related to it as compared to chemotherapy, but certain side effects can include skin disorders, hypertension and gastrointestinal discomfort.

5. Hormone Therapy

Hormonal therapy is administered to cancers that are dependent on hormones such as; breast cancer and prostate cancer. How: it either reduces the amounts of hormones in the body or antagonises their action, and this stops or slows down the development of cancer cells.

Methods

• Anti-estrogens and Anti-androgens: Oestrogen and testosterone are hormones that spur the growth of some forms of cancer; these drugs prevent the actions of both hormones.
• Aromatase Inhibitors: These drugs reduce the level of oestrogen in the body and are mostly prescribed to women with breast cancer after menopause.

Side Effects

• Some of the side effects include; hot flushes, weight gain, mood swings for breast cancer tumour therapies involving hormone therapies, low sex drive and the risks associated with low bone density for the prostate cancer tumour therapies involving hormone therapies.

6. Other Emerging Non-Surgical Treatments

Beyond the established methods, there are several emerging non-surgical treatments that show promise:Beyond the established methods, there are several emerging non-surgical treatments that show promise:

Photodynamic Therapy (PDT: This is a process that entails the use of drugs that are sensitive to light and light to eradicate cancer cells. But it works mostly on surface cancers or cancers in the layer of tissues that Line the inner surface of organs.

Cryoablation: In this method the cancer cells are exposed to very low temperatures of liquid nitrogen or argon gas and hence are shredded. It is often used with stage 0 or I cancer or diseases that might develop into cancer.

Hyperthermia: Here, the cancer cells are exposed to heat to destroy them or make them die, and such a treatment can be combined with radiation.

Non-surgical cancer therapies are a number of therapeutic approaches according to the individual patient’s condition, type of cancerous tumour, and disease stage.

There are disadvantages and advantages of each treatment however the ever increasing research and technologies are improving on these techniques and minimising side effects. To such chronically sick patients, these therapies are relatively harmless compared to surgery while enhancing the patients quality of life during and after treatment.

With further investigation in the field of oncology, there will be more advanced and highly effective solutions that are almost non invasive compared to the current ones with better prognosis for the patients.

The information provided represents the views and opinions of Karetrip. It is crucial to conduct your own independent research before making any decisions regarding your healthcare journey.