Targeted Molecular Therapy – Modern Cancer Treatment

14 million people are diagnosed with cancer each year and over 8 million deaths are reported annually. High mortality is attributed to the increasing prevalence of obesity and smoking.

Although treatments such as radiotherapy or chemotherapy can treat or even slow certain types of cancer from evolving, they are not without risk. Certain cancers are “resistant” to these traditional therapies, which is why researchers are constantly looking for new solutions for their healing.

Such an effective solution is targeted molecular therapy or targeted therapy, which can destroy the affected tissues without having adverse reactions as severe as classical therapies such as chemo. Scientists have been able to get “smart” drugs in the lab that specifically target a particular DNA sequence or gene that has undergone mutations.

Currently, many such molecules are tested and some have even been validated and are used in the treatment of solid tumors and blood cancers.

What is the molecular targeting of cancer?

Targeted therapy involves the administration of certain drugs that contain certain molecules that prevent the growth and spread of cancer cells.

Unlike chemotherapy, which has cytotoxic (i.e., cancerous) destruction, molecular therapy has a cytostatic effect (i.e., preventing cancer cell proliferation).

Another difference is that molecular therapy focuses on the action of certain molecules on how the immune system reacts to the affected tissue, while chemotherapy aims at destroying and dividing cells and implicitly increasing the risk of cancerous tissue spreading.

Targeted molecular therapy uses the patient’s genetic information to determine which molecules can act more effectively in relation to the type of cancer diagnosed.

Among the advantages of targeted molecular therapy we mention:

• Reduced risk of damage to healthy cells
• Fewer side effects
• Higher efficiency
• Improving the quality of life

Many molecular therapies have already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), others are still in the clinical or preclinical phase, but the results are encouraging, researchers provide.

Types of molecules used in targeted therapy

Every year many molecules targeting different genes or proteins that can inhibit the evolution of cancer cells are made in research laboratories, but they fall into two major categories:

Monoclonal antibodies – substances in this category have the suffix -mab: ofatumumab, panitumumab, rituximab, tositumomab, trastuzumab, pertuzumab, etc.

Small molecules that block certain enzymes, most commonly tyrosine kinases – these are recognized after the suffix -ib: erlotinib, gefitinib, afatinib, dacomitinib, olmutinib, simertinib, rociletinib, sorafenib, dovitinib, etc.